Extreme Skinny Celebrity Mums

The trend for super skinny celebrity mums is on. Keeping your weight down during pregnancy and rapid and extreme weight loss after giving birth has become the norm within the celebrity world. Whether it's pressure from the papaparazzi, a social event to look great for, or a million dollar contract hanging in the wings, it's no longer OK to lose your baby weight in anything over three months. Stars like Nicole Ritchie, Victoria Beckham and Jordan are experts in this game having cut down the time to a matter of weeks or less. But what message is this sending out to pregnant women?
This isn't to say you shouldn't want to look after yourself during your pregnancy - there are still too many women out there who use pregnancy as an excuse to stop being active, stop exercising and comfort eat whatever they want. A good friend of mine did exactly this and put on 30kg with her first child. On interviewing her about her pregnancy weight gain she said,

"I did eat a 500g bar of chocolate most nights and wouldn't think twice about eating whatever I wanted regardless of whether I was actually hungry or not. I do wish I'd taken more care as it's going to be a real struggle to lose the weight now"

Putting on too much weight during pregnancy has it's own set of complications such as toxemia from sugar and more dangerous implications like increasing the risk of the potentially fatal pre-eclampsia. A controlled diet and exercise programme is therefore beneficial but are the celebrities pushing the trend too far?

Nicole Ritchie was back down to a size zero just two weeks after giving birth and Jordan admits to living on fresh juices to shed two stone in just a few weeks to get back to her pre-pregnancy weight of 8st 2lbs. So what effect are these extreme diets having on mum and baby?

Any extreme and uncontrolled weight loss will see a rapid decrease in lean muscle mass. As our major organ, the heart, is just one solid muscle this also dramatically decreases in size bringing severe consequences. In an invetagative documentary for UK's Channel 4, when Natalie Cassidy tried the favoured maple syrup diet of Hollywood stars, she suffered palpitations, a racing pulse, followed by a blackout. The rapid decrease in size of the heart muscle in these circumstances can lead to a heart attack.

Not only are the major organs at risk then but the limited nutrition can lead to brittle bones and osteoporosis. Inadequate nutrition during pregnancy means that the baby will source minerals from wherever it can and if you're not eating enough, that's going to be from your bones and teeth. Combine the weakened bone structures with the extra weight you carry during pregnancy and you're looking at back pain, hip and knee problems.

So what is the right amount of weight to shed after your baby? James Clapp MD found that anything over 1lb a week can affect milk production, however, experts such as Dr Hilary Jones surmise that around 7-9 months is a good guideline to go by.

However, these guidelines are very general. If you are eating well and exercising properly you should lose your baby fat at a safe and steady pace, that fits with your body type and metabolism. This will be different for everyone as we are all unique and it depends on how much weight you put on, what your diet and exercise programme was like before, during and after your pregnancy, whether there were complications, etc. At the end of the day you will know what feels right for you, and as long as you aren't endangering the health of you and your baby, then there's nothing stopping you getting your body back relatively quickly. Just don't put pressure on yourself to be like the celebrity mums. In the real world, health comes first.