Starving For Two
Guess how many months pregnant the woman in that picture, Maggie Baumann, is? Go on, guess.
What would you guess if I told you she’s starving herself — herself and the fetus. It’s her second pregnancy and she doesn’t want to gain 33 pounds like she did the first time around.
She has what’s being called pregorexia and she writes about it over on MomLogic.
Okay, how far along?
Six months.
In her picture at seven months pregnant she is barely, barely showing. You’d hardly believe she’s pregnant in a shot just before giving birth. Baumann has spent her entire second pregnancy exercising in secret and obsessing about calories so that she wouldn’t have to watch her body undergo the radical transformation it did with her first.
Eventually, there’s bleeding and the fetus stops growing. But the baby is born and Bauman burns off the few non-baby pounds she did gain and then some.
Baumann and her baby were lucky. They both survived. Check out the essay and slideshow.
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Tags: anorexia, birth, calories, eating disorders, exercise, IGR, momlogic, pregnancy, pregorexia
11 Comments
ceecee commented on Jun 03 09 at 1:20 pmBizarre… by the way, what happened to all the comments from yesterday’s discussions? Was there a warning about this new format??
Maeby commented on Jun 03 09 at 4:17 pmshe shouldnt have gotten pregnant then. stupid.
Marj commented on Jun 03 09 at 9:51 pmYikes. Very scary.
Manjari commented on Jun 04 09 at 1:41 pmYes, it is very scary. It is difficult for me to understand that this is an illness she has, because my gut reaction is that she never should have become pregnant. It just seems so unfair that her daughter should have had seizures as an infant, and that she continues to experience difficulties because her mother cared more about being slim than nourishing her fetus.
ChiLaura commented on Jun 04 09 at 3:15 pmSo do those who criticize this woman think that “regular” (non-pregnant) anorexics are stupid, selfish fools, too? And did you even bother to click thru and read the link? I mean, clearly anorexics are not acting in their best interests, but I thought that our society is trying to move away at least a little bit from blaming the victim and toward recognizing that anorexia is a disease. Sure, anorexia can be overcome in a way that cancer, for example, can’t (i.e. mental therapy and lifelong discipline), but the problem with anorexia is that there is something fundamentally flawed in a girl’s/woman’s self-perception, making it more akin to “disease” than “selfishness.” How is this woman any different? If you read her essay, you’ll see that once the baby was born, she was able to nurture her baby in a much more healthy way. While she still struggled with anorexia, she almost seemed like a different person post-partum, which seems to indicate that she struggled with demons that most of us will never know. I admire this woman for speaking out, especially since she probably knew that she’d take a lot of heat from this. I hardly think this was as simple as, “She shouldn’t have gotten pregnant.”
Seriously.
Knitty commented on Jun 04 09 at 9:00 pmWould you make that same argument if the woman in this story had been an alcoholic instead of anorexia, Chi? I hear what you’re saying, but this woman took tremendous risks with her unborn baby’s health and I seriously doubt she was unaware that she had a life-threatening condition while she was pregnant. She should have immediately started treatment when she learned she was pregnant, just as a pregnant alcoholic should immediately can the excuses and get
Knitty commented on Jun 04 09 at 9:01 pm…treatment.
Babble editors, I hate this new comment system. I’m unable to edit what I write and half of what I type is invisible until I post it. What gives?
Marsha12 commented on Jun 04 09 at 10:06 pmVery Strange!!!!!! I think she is sick. She should not be pregnant at all. Its really bad to keep the fetus starved. The baby will bear the mark of the mother’s bizarre lifestyle all over his/her life span. Thats really bad
Manjari commented on Jun 05 09 at 4:05 pmYes, I read the article.
I think the difference between this woman and a non-pregnant anorexic is the pregnancy.
liz commented on Aug 25 09 at 2:00 am“So do those who criticize this woman think that “regular” (non-pregnant) anorexics are stupid, selfish fools, too?”
Yes. But that doesn’t mean I think they can get better without help. I just think that knowing they’re making their family suffer, especially their own children, should be enough motivation to ask for help.
Ri-chan commented on Sep 16 09 at 10:13 pmWhy not just get an abortion, it’s a much easier and quicker way to kill your baby.
