These Pregnant Women Can Make Their Baby Bumps Disappear, and It’s Freaking Everybody Out
Pregnant women can make their bodies do amazing things. Some women run marathons. Some women win the Australian Open at tennis. Some women even manage to throw up all day without actually having eaten anything. But a group of pregnant women can make their baby bumps “disappear,” and it’s kind of freaking everybody out.
The mysterious case of the disappearing fetus first appeared on the Instagram of a personal training company called The Bloom Method, which specializes in prenatal fitness and “diaphragmatic breathing.” Romper says it’s designed for “deep core engagement,” which sounds like it should be a Star Trek episode. It looks like it should be in a Star Trek episode, too, because check out the way this pregnant lady makes her bump “disappear.”
Wait, how did she do that? Where does the babby go? I’m flummoxed.
Of course the fetus doesn’t actually disappear, it just gets sort of hugged up inside so it moves higher up into the mother’s ribcage when she engages her transverse abdominal muscles, which makes her stomach temporarily look flat. The transverse abdominal muscles are the muscles that go across the stomach, and they usually take a real beating during pregnancy, and The Bloom Method is designed to help strengthen that area during pregnancy to help with pregnancy, labor, and postpartum recovery.
Personal trainer Brooke Cates created the Bloom Method, and this breathing technique a big part of it. It’s designed to exercise the transverse abdominal muscles, which she says can help prevent common pregnancy and delivery ailments like “Diastasis Recti, pelvic floor issues, low back pain, hernias, extremely long pushing times, slow recovery post birth.”
Cates says this is completely safe for the mother and the fetus, and she claims it will help women recover faster, and she also claims that it helps women push more effectively, thus shortening their delivery times. That sure would be nice, if it worked.
Cates is a personal trainer, not a physician, so it would be best to speak with an actual doctor before trying to learn how to make your fetus disappear like that. But it sure would make a cool party trick, though.
(Image: Instagram / The Bloom Method)
