Model and mom Kelly Hughes first found out that Sports Illustrated was casting a woman who had a scar from giving birth via cesarean section for their iconic swimsuit issue from an unlikely source in a competitive industry: another model who also happens to be a mom.
“That’s the really beautiful thing—this all started with a friend of mine who I’ve known for years. Without her, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity,” Hughes said.
Twenty minutes after Hughes, 42, asked her agent to throw her hat into the ring for the job, the casting department responded with a request for a photo of her C-section scar. The casting office was about to close for the day, so Hughes quickly set her camera on a tripod and took a photo of herself on the balcony of her Miami home.
“The scar was probably my biggest insecurity, and there I was actually showing it,” recounted Hughes. “Just taking the picture was part of a healing process for me, whether I got the job or not. Up until that moment, I had never seen a picture of myself with my scar.”
When she got picked for the photo shoot, Hughes was unaware that she would soon become the first person in Sports Illustrated’s 58-year history to show off a visible C-section scar, even though approximately 1.1 million women give birth via C-section each year, leaving behind a 4- to 6-inch scar just above the pubic bone.
Frida Mom CEO Chelsea Hirschhorn, who just gave birth to her fourth child, worked with the Sports Illustrated advisory board to advocate for the photo. “Culturally, we’ve done C-Section moms a disservice by painting a picture of C-Section moms as ‘lucky’ to have skipped a vaginal delivery, often labeling it ‘the easy way out,’ but anyone who’s had a C-Section would agree there is no easy exit,” said Hirschhorn.
Hughes said, “To me, a C-section was kind of normal. I knew that I had a scar, and I know other moms do too, but I never thought about the fact that we really hide them. We haven’t shown the scars. But I think a lot of things can happen from this moment.”
When you’re not ready to “bounce back”
After Hughes had been in labor with her son for 36 hours back in 2018, her doctor told her that she would have to have a C-section.
“That was my first lesson in motherhood—that I would have to put my own desires and plans aside for the safety of my son,” Hughes said.
The C-section caused a post-surgery infection, however, and Hughes had to return to the hospital just a week after bringing newborn Harlem home. Doctors reopened her C-section incision to rearrange her internal organs and get rid of the infection.
“The second surgery made the recovery process a lot more difficult,” Hughes recalled. “Knowing that my son was healthy kept me going strong, but I definitely started to develop insecurities during the process.”
Especially in an industry that focuses on physical appearance, Hughes felt a lot of pressure to “bounce back” to look like the person she used to be. But she was nowhere near ready.
“I didn’t lose all the baby weight. After I gave birth, I was a size 8, but [previously] I had always been a 2, and I didn’t lose the baby weight as fast as I thought I would have … I wasn’t able to go back to the gym. Now I have a scar that I wasn’t planning on having,” Hughes said. Hughes has learned mental recovery can take even more time than physical recovery. She said that if she had been asked to publicly show her scar last year, she might not have been ready. “I think we all heal in our own time,” Hughes said. “Some people heal physically but not mentally. And others are mentally strong but not physically strong. Becoming a mom brings a lot of changes and I don’t think there should be a timeline on them.” It certainly took Hughes time to accept and love her post-baby body. She is still not a size 2—she ranges between a 6 and an 8—and her scar is still very visible. “It wasn’t until I embraced the process that I found confidence and joy in it,” she said. As Hughes underwent her transformation into motherhood, her industry began a transformation of its own. The previously limited qualifications you needed to be a model has begun to shift away from tall, leggy, young women to women of all ages and sizes. “The industry has opened its doors to inclusivity,” said Hughes. “You can be a size 6 or 8 or 10 or 12 instead of just being a 2. You can even model while you’re pregnant. And I think that’s very comforting.” By showing her C-section scar, Hughes became instantly relatable to a big section of the population. Women with C-section scars have reached out to applaud Hughes for making her scar visible. But she has also received messages from women who had hysterectomy scars or other scars that they felt insecure about. “I think the point is that we should be normalizing things that have happened to us or developed in our bodies that we didn’t have before we were 15. People are really resonating with the idea that we should embrace our insecurities. And that’s what makes this so beautiful,” Hughes said.
Rosie Colosi, TODAY
Rosie Colosi is a reporter for TODAY Parents. Recommended
Embracing insecurities
