When the clothes fit: Exploring the embodied transition to motherhood

Abstract

Clothing practices can assist women in cultivating a particular body image and, thus, are sutured with details regarding how they manage their identity and appearance. Clothing can also help women cope with corporeal transitions, such as pregnancy. The relationship between clothing and one’s perception of their body shape changes during pregnancy as does how women feel about their clothes as they assume a new maternal identity. However, there is a lack of scholarly attention focused on exploring how postpartum mothers manage and relate to their bodies through clothing. Anchored in qualitative data collected from 128 in-depth, longitudinal interviews with 32 women at three, six, nine and twelve months postpartum, this article explores how postpartum body image, satisfaction and change are intricately linked with clothing across the first year after childbirth. Depicted through six women’s postpartum journeys, this article demonstrates that clothing becomes a barometer for bodily recovery following pregnancy and reveals details about maternal struggles, successes and spending patterns in the postpartum period.