Illana Weizman breaks taboos around postpartum

Let’s stop watering down motherhood. Becoming a mother can be tough, and even more so during the postpartum period. We dive into the unknown, while having a body bruised by childbirth, doubts and fears about our role as mom. Deny that is "Dangerous and toxic" for women, as Illana Weizman explains in her essay "This is our post-partum", published on January 20, 2021 by Editions Marabout.

A year before the release of her book, the sociologist had already spoken on the subject. With three other feminist activists, Masha Sacré, Morgane Koresh and Ayla Linares, she launched, in February 2020 on social networks, the #MonPostPartum movement. A skin-deep response to the censorship of a Frida Mom brand video spot showing the body of a postpartum woman from the Oscar ceremony.

In a few hours, the activists received thousands of testimonies and were confronted with a sad reality: although poorly experienced by the majority of women, physically and mentally, the postpartum period is still taboo today. . There is a cruel lack of information on the subject, mothers are not sufficiently prepared beforehand and medical staff are often not trained on this issue. For Illana Weizman, it is urgent that things change. In her essay, the author breaks taboos about the postpartum period, while providing avenues for changing the situation. She explains herself to aufeminin.

Also read: 'Once the child is here, we don't give a damn about the mother': Illana Weizman's cry for help on what women experience after childbirth

"I discovered everything on the job"

If Illana Weizman was interested in the postpartum issue, it is because she herself had a bad time during this period. “I felt like I was failing individually, that I was the only one struggling and that everyone around me was dealing with. In the maternity ward, I haven't heard of any trenches, postpartum contractions, extremely heavy bleeding for weeks. I discovered it all on the job and it's absolutely scary ", she recalls.

When her son was eight months old, she plunged into postpartum depression. This event, as well as the campaign around the hashtag #MonPostPartum and the many testimonials that resulted from it, made her realize that she was not alone. “I understood that this was a collective issue, and that ultimately what was happening to us – this feeling of isolation, abandonment and its difficulties – was really due to a global system that put us in this situation, and not to individual failures ”, she continues.

But how to explain such a taboo around the postpartum period, even though all women wishing to become mothers are concerned? For the sociologist, one of the reasons is that we have "This idea that motherhood can only be happiness, exaltation" : “It is very difficult in our society to consider the difficulties that go with motherhood. The postpartum period is a period of physical and psychological convalescence, of great suffering. Our body is unsightly and does not respond to the injunctions of the patriarchy. It is a body that is chaotic, that leaks, that is sagging. It’s a body that is not very acceptable to our society. "

Read also: Postpartum: stop making fun of women who talk about their pain, asks this feminist

A dangerous lack of representation

The postpartum period is over, and her body is absolutely not represented in cultural productions. “You don't see it in series, in movies, in advertisements. We have no role model, no representation to cling to ", she laments. Before telling: “I remember having a real shock the first time I saw myself in the mirror after coming home from the maternity ward. This previously tense and glorious body has become an emptied breath of the child. It’s like a sort of ruined field. We have the entire perineum area that has been damaged, full of physical after-effects… and no model to cling to. We've never seen a postpartum body before and it's extremely violent to see yourself like that. It can influence psychological issues and lead to self-esteem issues. "

Also read: "When I met her, I didn't feel anything": attaching yourself to your child is not automatic, this mother testifies

Ways to change things

According to Illana Weizman, the issue of information and preparedness is a central issue. “When you're going through such a physically and mentally overwhelming time, not being prepared is toxic and dangerous. We will think that our body has let us go completely, that we are abnormal, that we are dirty. There are a whole bunch of not very glamorous manifestations like hemorrhoids, incontinence, hair loss … knowing what to expect allows you not to feel dispossessed of your experience and not to feel completely failing, abnormal and alone ", she says.

Today, it is therefore essential to better inform mothers about this period, but also to better train health personnel. “Depending on the health personnel we will come across, there are sometimes very guilty comments. The monitoring protocols are not sufficiently automated and proximal to the mothers, and we often find ourselves in a kind of informational wandering. We don't necessarily have the idea of ​​going looking for, digging, this is information that we really have to get upstream ", she declares. For the sociologist, it is also very important to speak individually: “I self-censored a lot in my postpartum period because I was afraid of being judged, that I would be considered a bad mother if I didn't know how to handle, grit my teeth and take whatever happened to me. It got me into depression, so I'm really pleading that we can talk, ask for help when we feel like it's not right. "

Moreover, to help and support mothers during the postpartum period, Illana Weizman believes that it is necessary to have equal parental leave between both parents. “Our body is shrunk, our psyche is completely upset. If you find yourself dealing with the child on your own, it really is a recipe for disaster. So we also need the co-parent and therefore a more sophisticated public health policy ”, she concludes. Recently, the government extended the length of paternity leave by 28 days, including seven mandatory days (from July 2021). A measure not optimal enough for many feminist activists.