Body image attitudes during pregnancy and the postpartum period.

Research was conducted to investigate postpartal women's attitudes toward their body image; these attitudes were then compared to their pre-pregnant and pregnant body image attitudes. A repeated measures design was used, with data collected at two and six weeks postpartum. Pregnant and pre-pregnant attitudes were collected retrospectively. A nonrandom, convenience sample of 63 multiparas and primiparas was used. The results indicated that the subjects had a slightly positive attitude toward their postpartum body image; multiparas felt more positive about their postpartum body image than did the primiparas; the women felt more positive about their pre-pregnant body image than about their postpartum body image; and the women felt more positive about their postpartum body image than about their pregnant body image.