Katie Hopkins sheds the baby weight and then some

British Apprentice villain, Katie Hopkins is turning heads and this time it's not for being caught having an affair with a married bloke. Jaws are collectively dropping at Hopkins incredible weight loss: 42lbs since November after having her third child. The reality star claims she fitted back into her size 10 jeans just 10 days after the birth and she still has 14lbs to lose:

'I spent two years in the Army so I'm incredibly tough on myself about losing flab. I'm used to discipline.

'Everybody says "give yourself a break" after you've had a baby, but I find it better to get back into a routine.

'And I haven't been dieting as it only makes me think of food more. Breastfeeding has helped me lose the weight and I'm eating what I always eat - Bran Flakes for breakfast, a tuna sandwich for lunch, and dinner has to be something like curry or a roast.'

Hmm. I don't know about you but eating only one proper meal per day sounds like a diet to me. Considering breastfeeding often makes women more hungry as it takes extra energy to produce good milk, I wonder how the poor baby is making it through on mum's barely there nutrition?

Check out photos here

Pregnant mannequin that actually bleeds!

If you have ever wondered how obstetricians learn how to deliver babies, allow me to introduce you to 'Noelle', the pregnant woman simulator. For a mere $45,000 obstetric residents can practice birthing in a number of different situations. 'Noelle' can give birth normally, breech, and by C-section, and she can exhibit symptoms of having medical conditions such as diabetes and pregnancy-related emergencies such as seizures from eclampsia. Fake blood spurts from a reservoir in her leg. Oh, and her simu-baby is named 'Hal' and he is propelled down the birth canal by hydraulics and even turns blue to replicate oxygen loss...

Source: http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080811/NEWS32/808110333

Fat and Pregnant

I don't know about you but I'm pretty sick of reading about obesity. Australia was recently crowned the 'Fattest Nation' just edging out the United States and let me tell you, every second article in the papers lately is about the 'ticking timebomb' of fatness.

It comes as no surprise then that there is now a new genre of obstetric care emerging to accommodate pregnant women who are more generously proportioned. A new Centre for Bariatric Obstetric Care is opening in Ann Arbor, Michigan outfitted with special equipment to 'manage' the pregnancies of morbidly obese women.

Contrary to what seems to be logical, obese pregnant women are advised not to gain any weight at all during pregnancy, and instead, are encouraged to lose weight. Whilst it is clear that there is an impressive list of legitimate risks associated with obesity and pregnancy outcomes, one gynecologist has noted that pregnancy is effectively 'obesity's ground zero'. If anyone else has noticed, a range of headlines lately have been about how eating junk food, for example, in pregnancy can causes 'irreparable' lifelong damage to foetuses, predisposing them to being overweight by the age of 3. Now, it seems, it is okay to blame overweight women for obesity in the next generation. This is worrying. As much as fat is something that has come to be feared, my concern is that 'fat' has come to be a scapegoat for the privileging of foetal rights over maternal rights. For a while it was just women who smoked and drank that were blamed for foetal abuse, will having an extra piece of cake now carry the same moral weight?

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/13/magazine/13wwln-essay-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

Mylene: that white bikini and feeling fat

So Mylene Klass has appeared three times in that white bikini everyone knows:

1) In 2006 when she was standing under the waterfall in I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here

2) In 2007 when she was pregnant, appearing in an ad for Marks and Spencer

3) A third time, 3 months after she gave birth last year (in photo at left), again for Marks and Spencer.

Mylene recently revealed she was pretty traumatised by having to wear that bikini postpartum seeing as she was surrounded by uber-thin models. She says:

“I’m only 5ft 5ins and I had a bit of a tummy. I felt small and podgy.”

She said: “I said to them ‘You do realize I just had a baby three months ago?’

“It was really difficult for me to overcome my issues so soon after giving birth.”

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1030268/Myleene-confesses-I-felt-fat-THAT-bikini.html

Another pregnant cover

More rumours abound.. Nicole Kidman set to appear on the cover of Vogue preggers in July?

Source: http://blogs.fashionweekdaily.com/?p=4326

Angelina 'uncensored'

Ange is on the latest cover of Vanity Fair and she's not doing the proverbial 'Demi' although she does talk about being pregnant and Shiloh's caesar in Africa in which she found it necessary to comandeer an entire country in order to give birth. Oh and despite recent reports, she has not yet given birth to the twins in France....

On being pregnant:
“I love it. It makes me feel like a woman. It makes me feel that all the things about my body are suddenly there for a reason. It makes you feel round and supple, and to have a little life inside you is amazing. Also, I’m fortunate. I think some women have a different experience depending on their partner. I think that affects it. I happen to be with somebody who finds pregnancy very sexy. So that makes me feel very sexy.”

On Shiloh's birth:
“We were in this little hospital in Africa when Shi was born. I don’t think there was anybody else in the hospital. It was just a little cottage, the three of us. It ended up being the greatest thing…. I had a C-section and I found it fascinating. I didn’t find it a sacrifice and I didn’t find it a painful experience. I found it a fascinating miracle of what a body can do.”

Sorry, I'm just sick of Ange's sappy 'happy family' shtick. The article is called 'Angelina Uncensored' and for all intents and purposes, she's completely censored. Everything that comes out of the woman's mouth is just how happy she is, blah blah, how much she loves being a mother, blah blah. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Surely, motherhood is incredibly fulfilling but give us a little dark and twisted, a little bit of reality because no one can be that insanely happy nearly 7 months pregnant with twins and with 4 other children to look after (in spite of having a cavalcade of nannies). Motherhood is hard.

She's pregnant with twins. Surely, SURELY by this stage, she's not feeling so sexy anymore. The woman in my study who was giving birth to twins had to stop working at about 27 weeks because she was so uncomfortable that doing anything was a chore. I'm not going to qualify my statements here because any woman who has had twins knows that it's really hard work to be pregnant with two babies at once.

And what about the recovery from her caesar with Shiloh?! Sure, it's a 'fascinating miracle' that a doctor can slice your abdominal muscle in two and remove your baby in four minutes or less and you may not feel any pain during the surgery but what about after?! Give me a freakin break.

Oh and in case you had forgotten what Ange's 'bump' looks like (because we haven't seen enough pictures of her pregnant, Us magazine has an entire gallery devoted to her stomach) in the link below.

In other news, I'm happy to report that I printed out a full draft of my dissertation and had it bound....lots of work ahead for the next 7 weeks until submission but it's a big step forward..yay!

Source: http://www.usmagazine.com/angelina-jolie-brad-pitt-finds-my-pregnancy-very-sexy

Men don't have babies on their own

Headline: "Adam Sandler Expecting Second Child"

Does anyone else find this headline odd?

He has a wife. She is expecting their second child.

Sources: http://www.hiphop-elements.com/article/read/4/25215/1/
http://www.usmagazine.com/node/13387
http://www.usmagazine.com/node/11647

Another belly on parade...

*Yawn* News is that Nicole Kidman has already posed nude and pregnant and will appear on some magazine cover. Shot by Patrick Demarchelier, the most famous fashion photographer in the world. Im not sure what annoys me more; the fact that Nicole Kidman is posing nude or the fact that her face doesn't move when she smiles? Either way, get a new hobby ladies, nude and pregnant is so 5 minutes ago.

I didn't think this day would come, but it has. I'm over naked and pregnant. I don't get my nerdy researcher thrill anymore to find magazine covers littered with preggos, dreaming up all of the articles I can write. Naked and preggo is a very bizarre cultural phenomenon because for the most part, as much as we think we care about how celebs look when they're pregnant (in terms of how fat or thin they look), the truth is that the term 'baby bump' that has taken over our pop culture is about the 'baby' and not about the woman. Naked and preggo mag covers were groundbreaking because they were meant to put the woman back into increasingly medicalised images of pregnancy (hello foetus!) but the truth is they just reinforce all of the crappy cultural norms that we see in mainstream fashion photography; women need to be smooth and 'thin' in order to be beautiful naked. Now surely you're thinking how on earth can a pregnant woman be thin? Well, just look around. Most celebs are 'thin' and pregnant, no extra skin anywhere.

So I'm over naked and pregnant. Bring back the dowdy pinafores with weird ruffles and oversized bows. Or photos of preggo celebs with clothes on. At least they made for more interesting photos and a little something was left to the imagination. Sometimes I think that the reason all of these celebs want to pose naked and pregnant is not because they are 'celebrating' their fabulous birthing bodies. Rather, they are just proving to the world that they aren't 'fat' and they are still hot.

It's Friday in Melbourne. I'm tired. Perhaps I'll re-evaluate this post when I've slept for more than 4 hours.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/story/0,23663,23740914-7485,00.html

Ange does a Demi

You heard it here first.

What does every pregnant celeb do to prove that a mummy is still yummy?

That's right. A magazine cover!

Ange is posing on the cover of the July issue of Vanity Fair shot by Patrick Demarchelier including a 12 page spread inside a la Demi.

Can't wait!










Source: http://www.nypost.com/seven/05162008/gossip/pagesix/we_hear_______111066.htm

Is this really news?

Prepare yourselves people. Angelina Jolie is *gasp* PREGNANT.

WITH TWINS.

I never EVER would have suspected.

Thank you Today. We needed the confirmation.

Ange said:

"Unlike most women, I love being pregnant." She added that pregnancy makes "you feel like more like a woman than you've ever felt. You just feel like everything about your body is there for your baby."

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24619988/

Ange and her bump

Headline: Fit to burst: Angelina Jolie takes her huge baby bump for a helicopter ride

I don't know about you, but I hardly think that Ange looks 'fit to burst'. Um..she's a pregnant woman, not the Michelin man.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=563945&in_page_id=1773

The tale of a pregnant defense minister...

It seems the world is up in arms given Spain's newest Minister of Defense is not only a woman but she is also 7 months pregnant..

Carme Chacon, 37, shown in the image above inspecting her troups, is being heralded by Spanish feminist as being a role model; that women can be everywhere, especially if they are mothers. Spanish sociologists see Chacon's pregnancy as signalling more than just gender equality. Rather, the appearance of 'a woman in full womanhood' is symbolic of a more feminine, humanitarian military force.

As per usual, many people are questioning whether this capable woman will be able to do her job like a man because she of her pregnancy. The question resting on everyone's lips seems to be whether Chacon will take the 16 weeks paid maternity leave to which she is entitled.

In spite of the consternation the Minister has provoked, the truth is that her appointment marks a 'radical changing of the old Guard' in which Chacon is one of 9 women appointed to Prime Minister Zapatero's Cabinet. Zapatero was only recently criticised by Berlesconi of Italy for having a Cabinet that was 'too pink'. Life for Spanish women has never been easy, especially under Franco, women were unable to even hold passports or bank accounts on their own. This is definitely a new day.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1730927,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/20/spain.gender

Nicole Kidman and her invisible bump

I try not to judge..but Nicole Kidman is supposedly 6 months pregnant and the latest photo of her from last night at the Country Music Awards is a bit of a worry...perhaps it's a phantom pregnancy? She has no bump!

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=559755&in_page_id=1773













Source: http://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/celebrity/251623/nicole-kidman-s-mini-baby-bump.html

Cate Blanchett: new baby

All of Australia is abuzz with the news that Cate Blanchett, who only yesterday gave birth to her third son, Ignatius, is still slated to attend the 2020 Summit this weekend, just six days later.

There has been plenty of talk about Blanchett's promise to co-chair the creative Australia panel following her latest birth as being 'too soon' to be engaged in activity which I think is ridiculous.

Most women who give birth 'normally' without complication recover very quickly. There is no reason why Cate can't get on her with life like any other person. No doubt that a new baby will challenge a good night's sleep but the idea that she should lock herself because she has just given birth is preposterous! Besides women who give birth in most hospitals these days get discharged within 24 hours so there is no reason to believe that birth should be treated like an illness.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/2020-summit-still-blanchetts-baby/2008/04/14/1208025090843.html

Who yo baby daddy?

Headline: Minnie Driver reveals her budding bulge... but still no word on Daddy

It seems that no one can deal with the fact that an adult woman has decided to have a baby and not reveal the 'father' because clearly, all women who are pregnant are straight. Now, I'm not making any speculations about Minnie Driver's sexuality because it's none of my business, however, so bloody what if she doesn't want to tell people how she got pregnant or to whom?? I find the assumption that she is 'hiding' a man somewhere pretty ridiculous. Maybe she got a sperm donor? Maybe she's a lesbian? Who cares?!

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=557052&in_page_id=1773

Lisa Marie Presley: pregnant and pissed off

Finally, celebrities are fighting back against rumours of 'fat' and not pregnant. Lisa Marie Presley is suing Britain's Daily Mail for 'vicious' attacks on her 'growing physique'. The Daily Mail earlier this week was not very subtle in noticing her weight gain saying:

"Bloated Lisa Marie is now the double of dad Elvis"

Well, they've been served and Lisa Marie wrote on her MySpace blog:

"They couldn't wait to find out if my weight gain was because I was just overeating, in which case It would be open season and they can do the old following in her fathers sad and unfortunate demise story again or less interesting for them and probably much to their dismay, I could just be pregnant and therefore have a legitimate reason for weight gain at which point they should probably wipe the saliva off of their fangs and put them back in their mouths or they may expose the black little souls that they are".

I was amused to see Daily Mail's change of heart with this headline today:
Pregnant and proud: Lisa Marie Presley shows off her baby bump

The Brit's are clearly trying to appease before being forced to pay for their sins, going so far as to suggest that 'Lisa Marie looked radiant and every inch the happy mother-to-be' as she stepped out with her husband Michael Lockwood.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=529148&in_page_id=1773
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/03/07/furious-lisa-marie-presle_n_90464.html

DJ Sara Cox is apparently 'massive'

Daily Mail Headline: 'Radio 1 DJ Sara Cox reveals her massive baby bump'

I hardly think she looks massive. At 8 months pregnant, frankly, it would be more alarming if she didn't have a decent sized bump!

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=515576&in_page_id=1773

Javine does a Demi

Brit singer Javine Hylton is doing it just like Demi; naked and pregnant, that is. As opposed to the celebs like Christina and Mylene who blabbed on about how gorgeous and sexy they felt when they were on the brink of birth, Javine says:

'I'm usually 67kg (10st 7lb), but I've put on 19kg (3st). My bum's got really big – it has its own little personality'.

Source: http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/article.html?in_article_id=93078&in_page_id=7

Uterus news

Word on the street has it that Angelina Jolie is looking to 'sell' her twin pregnancy story to the highest bidder. Christina Aguilera is set to make $1.5 million from Ok! for the first photos of her son and Nicole Richie is to earn $1 million for photos of Harlow.

An open letter to all of the celebrities who are pregnant or are thinking about getting pregnant anytime soon:

As part of the tabloid reading public, I am sick and tired of you farming out the contents of your uteruses to the global media for millions of dollars before your belly even starts to have a hint of swell. Sure, you say, it's all going to charity, you're doing this 'for the children', blah blah blah. Wake up and smell the new millenium. Everyone loves a good baby cover story but don't you think selling your baby's image before he/she even develops the ability to hold their head upright is just wrong?

You complain that the paparazzi are constantly following you; that you can't go out to the supermarket without having your photo taken; that you feel like a prisoner of your fame and fortune. Yet, you sell the most private moments of your 'perfect' family to every gossip-loving mag hag in the free world! Since when did motherhood become an opportunity to make a cool mill? Has the new baby cover shot become a replacement for paid maternity leave?

Let's face it. Just because you are a celebrity, doesn't mean that motherhood won't be overwhelming. Sure you have nannies and drivers and trainers to help you 'bounce' back but fame will not save you from the baby blues, or even worse postnatal depression or feeling like the person you were before baby is lost forever. Seeing you pose on the magazine covers, so sweet and 'happy' with your 'motherhood is amazing'-isms makes my teeth hurt because any mother will tell you (and you probably know this already), motherhood changes you forever and it's not an easy ride. So forget about posing and preening for the camera. Save your baby's retinas from the blinding camera flashbulbs and just be a mother out of the spotlight. Your children will thank you for it some day.

Source: http://www.entertainmentwise.com/news/40274/angelina-jolie-to-sell-pregnancy-confirmation

Pregnant with Christmas cheer

What better way to celebrate Christmas than with another (semi) naked and pregnant celebrity?

Yulia Volkova of the controversial Russian girl group, Tatu, poses with Lena Katina clad only in a bra and undies for the Russian version of Maxim.

"We have many girls are using pregnancy as an excuse to look worse — as if it were a disease," Volkova told Maxim. "A pregnant girl can be sexual!"

How's that for a stocking stuffer?

Source: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=339969