Jade Beall is a photographer from Tucson, Arizona, whose unretouched portraits of mothers show bodies as they really are after pregnancy: stretch marks, loose skin, caesarean scars, soft bellies and all. Her photographs spread widely online and led to a book, The Bodies of Mothers: A Beautiful Body Project, published in May 2014. The photos below come from that body of work and show women of different ages and shapes, often with the children they carried.
The idea behind the series is simple. Most images of new mothers in magazines and advertising are carefully posed and often retouched, so many women have rarely seen bodies like their own presented with respect. Beall set out to change that by photographing ordinary mothers honestly and letting them tell their own stories alongside the pictures.
How Jade Beall's project began
According to a 2014 profile in the Tucson Weekly, Beall grew up partly in a small village in Mexico without electricity and started worrying about her body around the age of ten. After giving birth she gained about 50 pounds, struggled to lose it and went through postpartum depression.
Her response was to turn the camera on herself. She shared unretouched pictures of her own postpartum body, and they spread quickly online. As Mother & Baby reported, hundreds of mothers then contacted her asking to be photographed too. That flood of requests became A Beautiful Body Project.
Beall told the Tucson Weekly that "taking photographs of hundreds of women, strangers most of them, has allowed me to really love myself." Before launch the book had more than 1,000 preorders.
The photographs
Two children rest their heads and hands on their mother's belly, marked by lines from pregnancy. The children's touch turns the stretch marks into part of a family story rather than something to hide.
A mother's hand rests on her stomach while a baby reaches across from the side. Shot in black and white, the picture keeps the focus on texture and touch instead of colour.
A woman holds twin babies on either hip, her belly visibly changed by carrying two at once. She meets the camera directly, which gives the portrait a confident, matter-of-fact tone.
A close crop of a torso shows stretch marks across the hips and stomach in warm natural light. Without a face, the image could be almost any mother's, which is part of its point.
A mother's hands form a heart around her navel while a small child holds on to her leg. The image carries Beall's watermark and is one of the best-known pictures from the project.
A group portrait shows several women of different ages and skin tones, including a mother hugging her daughter. Beall often photographed women together to show how varied bodies are.
A slim mother looks down at a toddler hugging her leg, her stomach showing stretch marks. It is a reminder that marks and loose skin are not only about weight; they appear on all body types.
A tattooed belly with a visible scar low across the abdomen, held by a mother and a baby. Caesarean scars are among the most common changes after birth and are rarely shown in mainstream images.
A baby's feet rest on a belly lined with stretch marks, framed by two adult hands. The pairing of new skin and changed skin is one of the most tender images in the series.
A whole family gathers around: a mother holds her baby while two young girls look on and touch her belly. Including children makes the portraits about where these bodies came from, not about how they look.
What actually changes after pregnancy
The changes in these photos are very common. Stretch marks (striae) form when skin stretches quickly as the belly grows; they usually start red or purple and fade over time to paler lines, but rarely disappear completely. Abdominal skin and muscles can stay looser for months or years, and some women have a gap between the abdominal muscles, called diastasis recti, which can make the belly look rounded long after birth. Caesarean births leave a scar low on the abdomen.
None of these is a sign of anything wrong. If you are worried about your recovery, pain, your mood or your abdominal muscles after birth, talk to a doctor, midwife or physiotherapist, who can check what is normal for you.
Common myths about postpartum bodies
- "You should bounce back in a few weeks." Celebrity "after" photos create that expectation, but recovery takes months, and many bodies stay permanently different.
- "Stretch marks mean you did something wrong." Genetics and how quickly the skin stretches play a big part; they are not a failure of care.
- "Body positivity means loving every change." Beall's project invites acceptance, not compulsory happiness. Women in her book wrote about grief, aging, illness and loss as well as pride.
The book and its reach
The Bodies of Mothers was published by Green Writers Press, with an advance release on Mother's Day 2014 and general release on 23 May 2014, according to the publisher's page. It is a large-format hardcover that pairs portraits with the women's own words about motherhood, aging, cancer, stillbirth, miscarriage, weight gain and loss, and body dysmorphia. The publisher says the project was covered by outlets including the BBC and NBC, and the book is now out of print.
Why these pictures still matter
Years later, the portraits are still shared by new parents because they offer something simple: recognition. They do not ask every woman to feel confident about her body, and they do not replace one ideal with another. They show that the bodies that carried children are normal and worth photographing with care. For more in the same spirit, see Portraits That Celebrate Distinctive Features and Individual Style.
Sources: Tucson Weekly: Jade Beall's Mother's Day book launch; Mother & Baby: Photographer captures what mothers really look like; Green Writers Press: The Bodies of Mothers; photos by Jade Beall.
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