Do you think women still feel pressure to hide breastfeeding or make themselves discreet in public? Why?
I don’t want to answer this question because I feel like we shouldn’t feel like we have to hide ourselves breastfeeding in public. But I think what is really hard is that so many women still do feel like they have to be discreet, or hide, or even stay at home because they’re worried that if they have to breastfeed in public, they can’t.
And yeah, it’s really upsetting to talk about because we shouldn’t feel that way, but unfortunately, I think we’re in a place in society where we still do.
How has becoming a mum changed the way you see your body?
How has becoming a mum changed the way I see my body?
I actually went through my own journey with disordered eating and body image in my early 20s. And I think because of that, I’d come to a place when I was pregnant that I could really look at my body and accept it for what it could do—and its kind of functional ability, I suppose, as opposed to the way that it looked like.
But it doesn’t mean that being pregnant wasn’t hard. It’s a journey. And I think as a society, we celebrate pregnant bodies that look a certain way, and then as soon as we’ve had the baby, we’re expected to not look like we’ve had the baby, and it’s so jarring and it can be really overwhelming.
But I think for me, now I’ve had my baby, it’s like: my body is amazing! Like, it grew this baby that is now here in the world and I love so much, and it’s the coolest thing in the whole world. So I feel like I can definitely appreciate it a lot more.
There’s a lot of pressure for mums to ‘bounce back’ after having a baby. What do you think we should be asking women to do instead?
It is wild to me that after a woman has grown a baby… like, I just always think: if as a society we could see the baby growing outside of our body, we would actually celebrate women a lot more. I feel like we’d give ourselves way more grace. We just expect ourselves to get up and get on with it, and we keep working and we keep doing all the things.
And so, I think for me, when you think of what you go through in your pregnancy, also like the mental rollercoaster that you go through… if we then expect women, when you are so early postpartum—you’ve had one of the biggest life transitions you’ll ever have—to think about the shape and size and what their body looks like… like honestly, in that moment, nothing matters less.
And so I think for me, the way that I’ve been framing it with myself is kind of just looking at: I’m not the person I was before. You know, that’s appearance, myself internally—which is obviously what is the most important thing—and that’s okay. And so I’m just looking at myself as an evolved version, and I think the shape of my body is irrelevant, like before, and also now.
Why did you want to be a part of Nala’s leak-proof campaign, and what about the message resonated with you?
Oh, the message of… I mean, everything that Nala does, and your amazing founder Chloe who is right here, is just so inspiring.
And I think for me, I remember the first Sorry to Offend You campaign. I remember it so clearly. It was so cool and amazing. And it also, I think, it started so many conversations like within my friendship groups about: “Hang on, why are we actually shaming women for breastfeeding in public? Like, why are we making them feel this way? Why, again, is society not built for women? Like, why do we make it so hard for us?”
And so, for myself now, being a mum and breastfeeding—I’ve breastfed my son for the past 10 months—having experienced the… I think the first time I breastfed in public, I thought I would feel confident, but I felt overwhelmed. I was also like, “Oh my god, how… How the f**k do I like get his little tiny mouth onto my nipple?” Like, latching is a science!
And I don’t know, I didn’t think about it before and it was so hard!
I’m trying to get this little tiny mouth onto my cracked nipple, while trying to like… my boobs are, when you first give birth, like over-full of milk. And I’m trying to get it on, and I’ve got this big rock-hard melon thing with this tiny mouth! And then I’m also trying to think, “Oh my god, are people looking at me? Am I being a good mum? They probably think I’m not being a good mum because I don’t know how to breastfeed properly.”
But then I think on top of that, the pressure to then, “Oh my god, also, do I need to think about them? Do I need to think about, am I offending that person next to me?”
It’s overwhelming. And I think in that moment, that campaign resonated with me even more. And so now to be here and being a part of it in 2026 as a mum is like pretty damn special.
If you could change one thing about the way society talks about women’s bodies and motherhood, what would it be?
If I could change one thing about the way society talks about women’s bodies and motherhood… I mean, I think with women’s bodies, we need to stop talking about them. I think so often our body and the way that we look is the center of how we talk about women and how we value women, which is so wrong because obviously we offer so much more than the way that we look. We don’t talk about the way that men look—like, literally, hardly ever.
And so that’s in terms of body. But then I think with motherhood, I think it is acknowledging the huge transition that it is and giving ourselves more grace. I think we give ourselves a lot of grace for the first maybe, you know, 1 to 3 months—it’s like you’re newly postpartum, people bring you food… but then life gets busy and life goes on.
And I think there’s this really pivotal point at like around 4 months where I really struggled because I felt like society started expecting me to go back to my ‘normal’, but I still was, you know, sleep-deprived, I’d been pregnant 5 minutes ago, I’d had a C-section—had this major operation—and also like your hormones are changing, there’s a lot going on with it, right?
And so I found it incredibly overwhelming at that stage. And so I just think we’d give women a lot more grace and also acknowledge mothers for what they do.
Like now that I’m going back to work and looking at, you know, care for my baby… when you pay someone to care for your baby, but when you’re doing it, it’s like we don’t value mothers at all and see it as a job when it is. So I just feel like I wish we could think about it completely differently.
I wish men could be pregnant!
What would you say to a new mum who feels self-conscious about breastfeeding, leaking, or simply navigating their changing body?
What I would say to a new mum is that, number one, no one is looking at you. I think sometimes we feel that everyone’s looking at us. You are doing the most amazing job. Motherhood is so hard, no one does it perfectly.
And I think as well, if anyone… if you feel judgment from anyone, like particularly if you’re breastfeeding in public, like that is on them. Like I feel like if someone feels uncomfortable with you breastfeeding your baby in public—number one, enabling you to get out of the house (motherhood can be so isolating, it is so important to get out of the house)… so if it means that you need to breastfeed in public, if someone next to you feels uncomfortable about that, like I would like to ask them, “How would you feel having to feed through a cracked nipple? Or getting up in the middle of the night every 30 minutes and having a baby screaming at you?” Like, that is what is uncomfortable!
And so I think sometimes when you put it into perspective like that, it’s like they can honestly get over it, and also what they think doesn’t matter. You’re allowed to breastfeed in public. It’s been legal for a very, very long time.
You’re someone who is very much in the public eye, a lot of women look up to you, and from the outside it can look like you’ve got it all figured out. How does it feel knowing women look to you in that way, particularly now that you’re a mum?
Oh, I mean… I don’t have it all figured out! I feel like we are all just kind of like… an iceberg!
I feel like we’re all kind of like an iceberg. And I think as women, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to show up and be there for everyone, and take care of everyone, and be a career woman, and be a great mother, and show up for our friends, and remember our husband’s mother’s birthday… all of these things! And we put so much pressure on ourselves that then I think sometimes it means that we make it look easy. But under the surface, it’s absolutely not, and it’s really hard.
And I think what I would say to anyone that might look at me and think, “Oh, she’s doing a great job,” like: I have days where I feel like I am absolutely drowning. And that’s life, and we are all doing our best, and I think that’s all we can ask of ourselves.
If there’s a woman watching this who feels uncomfortable in her changing body, embarrassed about breastfeeding, or worried about something as simple as leaking through her top, what would you want to say to her?
I think for me I would say… all of those things - breastfeeding in public, leaking through your bra… First of all, get the new bra, it’s really good! It’s leak-proof!
Get the new bra, it’s leak-proof, it’s amazing! But, you know, leaking through your bra, your body changing, breastfeeding in public - they are all things that you are doing because you are being an incredible mum to your baby.
And I get emotional when I talk about this, but it’s like… being a mum is really hard. But it’s also the most magical thing in the world. And it kills me when we get caught up and judge ourselves for things like breastfeeding in public or leaking through our top… because if you’re breastfeeding in public, it means you’re feeding your baby and you’re looking after them, and like, that’s amazing!
And so don’t let other people’s judgment and society’s judgment stop you from celebrating yourself and being able to look in the mirror and be like, “I am a f**king good mum. And a good person.”
