Baby, oh, baby, show us a woman who still thinks style has to suffer during pregnancy, and it’s a pretty safe bet that she hasn’t been keeping an eye on red carpet mamas.
Best Dressed Baby Bumps
The quotation above was taken from this slideshow over at youbeauty.com. When I stumbled upon this slideshow, I was pretty shocked. Hollywood portrays its pregnant celebrities in interesting ways. Hollywood is constantly checking female celebrity’s bodies for “baby bumps” at the slightest appearance of a bulge. That one extra cupcake at a party or that extra french fry could potentially be a baby bump. After a celebrity has finally announced an official pregnancy, before or after they are actually ready to announce it, eyes are constantly on the tummy.
Of course, pregnant superstars cannot let their bodies or their fashion sense slide during pregnancy. Their body is still supposed to look like one of a superstar. The only piece of the body allowed to grow is the belly. The rest of the body is still as sexualized as it was before. Red carpet commentators drool over that motherly glow and growing tummy. Even with the growing bump, these women are supposed to dress to make the public comfortable, not themselves. Instead of maternity sweatpants, pregnant stars instead wear maternity gowns that accentuate the bump for all of the world to take part in her pregnancy.
Superstar bodies are constantly on display, even during pregnancy. Talk about the laboring body! I can only imagine how uncomfortable pregnancy is by itself. Adding on paparazzi cameras, heels, a drapey gown, and keeping a stellar body is way too much! Having a body that is constantly on public display, being praised and criticized, must be a big stress on famous women. What do you think?
Unruly Bodies 
I would not be surprised if famous women did experience stress while being pregnant. The author of the original post stated, “pregnant superstars…body is still supposed to look like one of a superstar” and “pregnant stars…wear…gowns that accentuate the bump”. The “ideal body type” for women purported by society is that of a thin one, and superstars are also expected to adhere to this ideal. Appearing to be thin while simultaneously showing off one’s baby bump seems like an oxymoron, and also seems to be very difficult, if not impossible. Thus, the oxymoron seems like a recipe for stress. In regards to whether or not critique is stressful on famous pregnant women (I’m not sure if the author of the original post simply meant famous women in general, but I took the author’s question into context of the original post), when considering the case of Christy Henrich, a famous gymnast who got an eating disorder after she was told by a judge that that she was too fat to excel in gymnastics (as pointed out in http://www.casapalmera.com/articles/
stories-of-famous-athletes-with-eating-disorders/), one can see that famous women who are not necessarily pregnant can be affected by criticism. Thus, it may be reasonable to assume that especially for pregnant women, who cannot help that their stomachs grow larger, critique can be devastatingly stressful.
Also, I find it intriguing that pregnant stars dress to emphasize their “bump”. It is as if the baby they are carrying becomes an extension of their bodies, and that they are attempting to make that extension to look pleasing to others like they would with any other body part of theirs. One could make the analogy that like stars may apply makeup to “define” their features, they use their dresses to “define” their babies.
It does seem like we simultaneously hold up two ideals for female celebrities- they must simultaneously be slender fashion plates as well as mothers, two things that are totally incongruous for many women outside of Hollywood.
The management of appearances here is fascinating. First, one rarely hears of a celebrity having a serious problem during pregnancy. To the public eye, they float through their pregnancies as if on a cloud, showing up at the red carpet events as described above, to be adored by the public. At the end, they produce a bundle of joy who quickly gets their own press contingent. As a result, we see that the child is also perfectly “normal”, without any sort of health issues (there are rare exceptions to this- see Jenny McCarthy and her son).
It might seem a bit cynical to think of all of this- the floating pregnant woman, the perfect child- as simply the work of good PR people. But how else could it be? As chickfantastic said, the stress on these women has to be enormous, and it’s hard to imagine that it would have no impact on pregnancy. The same goes for the children after they’re born- statistically, not every one of these children will be perfectly alright. But what would happen if the veil was pulled back, so to speak? If we knew that so-and-so was on bed rest for the last three months of her pregnancy, or that their child was born with a serious birth defect, would that make them more relatable, or just an outlier to be cast aside, unable to meet our celebrity expectations?