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Brittany Aäe is an endurance athlete and coach who posted personal photos of her life, travel, and workouts – and her continued workouts through her pregnancy – on her Instagram account. Aäe was hoping that her posts would inspire and encourage women to continue working out through their own pregnancies, finally dispelling the myth that pregnant women should stop training.
Not long after posting this photo, however, Aäe began to receive criticism and backlash from some of her followers and other people online who’d seen her post.
These comments claimed that Aäe’s body during her 38th week of pregnancy was too small and unhealthy. She shouldn’t have kept exercising during pregnancy and instead, just focused on nurturing her child.
Instead of letting these comments get the best of her, Aäe fought back by posting another photo of her pregnant body just one week later.
In this post, Aäe placed a photo of her and her pregnancy bump next to a similar shot of plus-size model, Tess Holliday. While others have criticized her 39-week pregnant body as being “too small,” others have attacked Holliday for being just the opposite.
Aäe fights back against all the critics by defending Holliday, herself, and all other women: “Both [Tess and Aäe] are having or had healthy pregnancies as validated by our health care providers. Both of us are making empowered choices about our personal health. Why does our society shame women whose bodies do not adhere to some narrow notion of false normalcy?”
The endurance athlete and coach argues that women’s bodies aren’t just property about which others can idly comment or criticize. She later said, “My body is not just a fetus carrier. I am also another being.”
Aäe had originally decided to post about her decision to continue professional training through her pregnancy in hopes of inspiring and encouraging other women to do the same for themselves. She’d always known that people didn’t expect pregnancy to also include endurance training.
“People were thinking about [pregnancy] in terms of a symptomatic experience, and not one of growth. I want to share this really positive, supportive experience with people, while communicating that this is possible for anyone,” Aäe said.
She has since given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl and continued her endurance training just four days after her daughter, Rumi Wren, arrived.
