Nikki Bella Slams 'Bulls—' Pressure to Snap Back to Her Pre-Baby Body: 'It Messes With You'

Nikki Bella is not here for the pressure that new moms face to get back to their pre-baby bodies. During an interview with Ashley Graham on her Pretty Big Deal podcast, Bella addressed the stress that new moms face following the birth of their children. The Total Bellas star gave birth to her first child, Matteo, with fiancé Artem Chigvintsev this past summer.

"What I've realized is as moms, we don't talk about that enough because I think we feel like everyone then automatically thinks we hate our baby if we say we have postpartum depression, which, that's not it at all," Bella said on the podcast, during which she appeared with her twin sister, Brie Bella, who gave birth to her son, Buddy, one day after her sibling gave birth. "It's totally the battle within yourself, within your partner [or] significant other. Especially, I think, for career women." Bella added, "We go from, like, these major careers and then we're here. And then I'm looking in the mirror and then I think, [with] us in the spotlight, we have so much pressure on us to get back to where we were in a short amount of time."

Graham agreed with Bella, saying that this pressure to "snap back" is "bulls—." Bella and her twin sister concurred, adding that it is "such bulls—." The former Dancing With the Stars contestant even addressed just how much this pressure can mess with moms who are simply trying to do their best with their newborns. She explained, "It messes with you. Literally, someone the other day was like, 'Gosh, she's still big!' and I was like 'Excuse me?'" As previously mentioned, Bella gave birth to her first child, a son named Matteo, in July. She and her twin sister originally announced that they were both expecting babies back in January. Ever since she welcomed her first child, Bella has been open about tackling motherhood.

In November, she even opened up to Us Weekly about feeling "frustrated" by her postpartum figure. She said, in an article published on Nov. 11, "I don't feel sexy at all. Like, I don't feel beautiful. … It's so hard to, like, look at yourself in the mirror and just feel disappointed. It's been, like, a huge struggle on me because even when I would fluctuate in weight, I was still toned and working out and felt good in that way. This was just something different."