Embracing motherhood: This Instagram account proves post-pregnancy bodies are beautiful

#takebackpostpartum is an online movement to promote acceptance and help women embrace motherhood with confidence.

Blogger and public speaker January Harshe is on a mission.

The mother of six beautiful children wanted women struggling with image issues and fat-shamed to flaunt their post-pregnancy bodies. So, she started an online movement to promote acceptance and help women embrace motherhood with confidence.

She has indeed brought many moms across the world together to break the stigma on her Instagram account “Take Back Postpartum” and encourage other women to participate using the hashtag #takebackpostpartum.

“Life and motherhood are hard even when blessed. We need support not shaming,” Harshe told in an interview to The Huffington Post.

“My hope is that by women changing how they feel about themselves they will be more loving not just to themselves, but to other women as well. We are more powerful and amazing than we realize (sic).”

As a mother herself, Harshe say she relates to the struggles of other women.

“I used to see the world through the mind of a ‘fat’ woman. I realized as I shared my journey of self-acceptance, that all women struggle ... ‘Fat’ is no longer a shameful word to me. I am simply me. A woman, a mother, beautiful,” she says.

“I kept seeing the #takebackpostpartum hashtags and I thought, ‘Wow, these women are so brave to put it all out there.’ I didn’t think I could ever do that,” Britney Asbell told Today.

Asbell says she felt empowered after sharing her post-pregnancy picture and her stretch marks remind her of the “tiny bump” which was once her daughter’s home.

“I may not ever look the way I did before I had the twins. And you know what? I’m OK with that…My body has done amazing things, why on earth would I punish it?” another Instagram user @twinmamadiaries shares her experience.

Here’re some of the powerful images from the “Take Back Postpartum” account.