'YOU'RE GROSS' Aussie mum is BULLIED and trolled for the size of her baby bump
She had hundreds of hateful comments
By Frances Sheen
February 11 2019
An Aussie mum has described how she was labelled as 'fat' and 'gross' by cruel bullies who trolled her during her pregnancy.
Elisha Bakes, from Melbourne, welcomed her second son Kaelen last month and he was 3.6kg.
But when she was just 18 weeks pregnant, and announced her pregnancy to her 37,000 social media followers, the hateful comments started because her followers said her bump looked too big.
Elisha, who already has a son, Kyson (21 months) with her partner Tane, claims people continued to slam her for the size of her bump saying she must be expecting a horse, suggesting she was eating too much and assuming her diet was unhealthy.
But at 5ft2 Elisha says she was perfectly healthy and did not even get stretch marks thanks to good 'genetics'.
Elisha said: “People would say hurtful things like, ‘Why is her bump so big? I better not get like this’ and that it was the biggest bump they’d ever seen.
“When I was six months along I would often get asked if I was due to pop any day. I would get a very surprised reaction when I let them know I was only 24 weeks.”
“I think people have an idea in their head about how a pregnant woman should look, sometimes based off their own experiences, so when they see a woman who is carrying larger or smaller, they feel the need to comment and give their two cents.
“I had hundreds of messages from women who had experienced the same thing. They told me how they would get very anxious about people commenting on their bump and would make them feel very insecure and not be able to enjoy their pregnancy.
“This would range from women who carried small and they would have people ask if they were even pregnant or telling them that they had looked bigger after eating a pizza. Some women were told they needed to eat more, whereas I was told to lay off the food.
After Elisha gave birth to her son in January, she assumed the vile comments would stop but they didn't
“People would say, ‘Oh he only weighed 8lbs,' she says.
“I think a lot of people were eager to see how big he would be, expecting him to be huge."
Elisha says that her pregnancy was monitored and she was healthy and experienced no side-effects or problems but thinks that because her partner Take is 6ft3, her bump looks bigger when she stands next to him because of the size proportion.