Let’s begin with a familiar image.
A woman, newly postpartum, stands in her living room. Her baby is nestled in a sling across her chest, and she’s attempting something between a squat and a stretch while simultaneously rescuing a plush giraffe from under the couch. She is not wearing Lululemon. She has not “bounced back.” But she is moving.
Now compare this with the Instagram version: flat abs, seamless leggings, an immaculately swaddled baby in the background, and a caption about “finally feeling like myself again.” It’s a powerful narrative, and an insidious one.
That discrepancy is exactly where Dr. Iris Lesser and her team at the University of the Fraser Valley step in. Dr. Lesser, a prenatal and postnatal exercise specialist, leads a research group investigating how postpartum women navigate the complicated terrain of body image, physical activity, and the pressure to conform to society’s aesthetic expectations. What they’ve discovered isn’t shocking but it is urgent.
Postpartum women are caught in a double bind: society encourages them to be active for their mental and physical health, yet punishes them for not looking like they’ve erased all evidence of childbirth in the process. This is what Dr. Lesser’s research calls the “bounce back” narrative, a fantasy that suggests recovery from pregnancy should be fast, photogenic, and mostly invisible. But the reality, as Dr. Lesser’s studies show, is more about transformation than reversion. And that reality deserves representation.
So her team got clever. They didn’t just write papers or make recommendations. They made videos. They showed exercises that included babies wriggling on yoga mats. They captured women of different shapes, sizes, and skin tones performing small, sustainable movements “exercise snacks,” not punishing gym regimens. These weren’t fitness influencers, they were mothers. Real ones.
Then came the guidelines. Davenport et al. recently released new postpartum physical activity recommendations: 120 minutes of moderate to vigorous movement per week, with a nod toward earlier and more structured returns to exercise. Whilst not new, the additional support for early return to movement and specific guidance is interesting. There’s even a new tool, the Get Active Questionnaire Postpartum, that helps flag potential medical concerns before a mother laces up her shoes. This emphasis on gentle, early movement and the tools to screen for when it’s safe offers something that’s long been missing: reassurance. In Dr. Lesser’s research, mothers spoke not of laziness, but of uncertainty. They weren’t avoiding exercise, they were afraid of doing it wrong, of doing harm. A little guidance goes a long way when confidence has been shaken by stitches, sleep deprivation, and silence.
But here’s where it gets complicated. The guidelines may be rooted in science, but for many, they read more like a high-performance blueprint than a gentle nudge. Parenting forums lit up with feedback. “Wildly optimistic,” wrote one user on Mumsnet as reported in The Guardian, noting how hard it is to think about a workout when you’re living off granola bars and 2 hours of sleep. And they’re not wrong. If advice isn’t grounded in lived reality, if it doesn’t leave space for grace, messiness, and moments of collapse, it can feel like yet another standard to fail at. The challenge isn’t the guidance. It’s how we present it.
Dr. Lesser’s research, grounded in interviews, survey data, and even auto-photography (mothers documenting their own movement), reveals something quietly radical: when women see bodies like theirs reflected in physical activity content, they are more likely to move. More importantly, they feel better about themselves, their identities as mothers, and their capacity to be active on their own terms.
It’s not just about flattening the tummy or tightening the glutes. It’s about rewriting the narrative of what “health” looks like after birth.
“You have all this extra baby weight. You’re not sleeping well. You’re trying to adjust to this new normal… and then you get this video of perfectly skinny people doing all these crazy moves and contortions.” ~ study participant
This photo essay is more than a collection of images and videos, it’s a counter-narrative. It disrupts the sanitized visuals of social media and replaces them with something better: truth. You’ll see glute bridges, squats, and core-stabilizing “bird dogs,” yes, but you’ll also see smiles and muscles doing their work.
This matters. Not just because 1 in 7 mothers experiences postpartum depression. Not just because new moms report lower self-efficacy and body satisfaction. But because for too long, visual media has failed them. And when it fails them, it erodes their sense of possibility.
Dr. Lesser and her colleagues, including research assistants Megan Filiatrault, Paige Johnston, and Breanne Hobbs, have lit a path forward. With support from the Sport Information Resource Centre (SIRC), they’ve created tools, guides, and now visuals that reflect the full, beautiful spectrum of postpartum physical activity.
The real bounce back? It’s not to your pre-baby body. It’s to your sense of agency.