Why is maternity clothes so expensive

After all, far too many clothes aimed at pregnant people are ridiculously expensive, which is extra-silly and hilariously obnoxious considering these are clothing pieces that are only relevant for a few months of your life — even if you wear them for multiple pregnancies.

Talk about stressful. We asked five pregnant, nonpregnant and postpartum people to wear the literal same pair of pants and give us their honest feedback note that we selected people who are all size medium in general, because literal same pair of pants. Their experiences prove that if you make a couple of careful choices, there are amazing non- maternity clothes out there that will last you from pre-child to post-child and beyond.

First up was Seema, who was not pregnant although she is an admirable dog mom. Prepregnancy pants, check. So did the pants pass muster? I am 6 feet tall, so I wore them like capris. I felt stylish yet comfortable… I think they would grow with me nicely and be something I could wear before, during and after pregnancy. Five stars from me.

Visit consignment shops, garage sales, and even eBay for hand-me-downs. Search the Web for sites dedicated to maternity wear. Check out iMaternity. Invest in good undergarments that will take you through your pregnancy with no hassle.

Find your exact maternity bra size. Find maternity clothes while shopping for milk at Target and Wal-Mart. Borrow from friends and relatives who just had babies, or are looking to get rid of their older maternity wear steer clear of anything too dated-looking, which may be economical but may make you feel frumpy.

Buy one or two outfits that you feel beautiful and confident in. Pair these pieces with other items to create a wardrobe of figure-flattering duds. For the working mom-to-be, have fun looking for work-appropriate gear. To look professional, stick with a more neutral color palette, such as black, charcoal, olive, camel, and even some red, for accent.

Look for more form-fitting articles of clothing to show off that bump, not to hide it! Of more than 3, AmericanBaby. Thirty-three percent said they appreciated the style, but chose, themselves, to cover up, and only 16 percent wished those curves would stay clothed.

Take it from our readers: Pregnancy's a time to look and feel great! By Deirdre Byrne. Be the first to comment! No comments yet. Close this dialog window Add a comment. Any one have suggestions of maternity clothes that fit more in my budget?? I went to thrift stores in my area, and generally I believe if you have childrens consignment shops you can find maternity wear there too.

I am a clearance rack shopper myself so I feel your pain! I couldn't find maternity pants with my last pregnancy so I bought Jeggings and things like that that were stretchy enough for my belly but didn't totally look like tights or yoga pants since I worked in an office. Sweats are great too!

Old navy online and shoppinkblush. And old navy jeans are fantastic! Target, old navy, thrift stores. I have 5 jeans, 3 dresses, and like 10 tops and haven't spent more than Also try maternity swap and sell sites on fb.

That's where I've gotten most of my clothes, beside hitting the sales at old navy and destination maternity. I get all my maternity clothes at Ross or Kohls. Most shirts are 5 bucks and pants are cheap too: my size changes a lot and quickly during pregnancy so there is no point in me buying the expensive stuff.

I find cute stuff there too so it's not just cheap. I found some great stuff at Ross! I'm the same way Especially because we really won't be wearing them that long! First, the pregnancy announcement photo. Tiny shoes are popular. So are dogs posed next to chalkboards. Ultrasound photos are always a classic. The same could be said for every other milestone of an Instagrammable pregnancy. Bumpies — selfies highlighting the bump — are plentiful, a trend that took off in thanks to apps like BabyCenter.

As long as a carrot! As big as romaine! Bumpies are, unsurprisingly, controversial , alternately a source of irritation for onlookers and a connection to community for moms-to-be. Maternity brands have tapped into that longing for community and leveraged the continuing trend in their social media strategies. PinkBlush features a rotating collage of Instagramming shoppers who tag shoppinkblush on their accounts, and regrams them from the company handle.

Of course maternity culture is bumpie-obsessed; wider culture is selfie-obsessed. And Instagram — the handheld projection that life is wonderful and picture-perfect — encapsulates the pressure to perpetuate a flawless aesthetic in day-to-day filtered life and in pregnancy.

We see, and post, fantasies. Peruse handles like pregnantandperfect and tags like babybump 4. But these feeds hide the reality from the cameras: the nausea, the immobility with a few notable exceptions , the shortness of breath from climbing a flight of stairs, the searing round ligament pain, the radiating back pain, the unwelcome spotting, the difficult labors, the episiotomies, the C-sections, the emergency decisions, the complications that no one foresees.

No one wants to subscribe to those feeds; no one would voluntarily give birth if they did. The baby simply gave me diabetes!

Thanks, baby! I land on a regrammed photo of writer Jenny Mollen, pregnant and juggling six cartons of ice cream. Expect to feel frustrated when you endeavor to do everything right — eat all the right foods, wear all the right clothes — and still fail. Expect to leave the house looking like a slob, feeling like a slob, and maybe reveling in the smidge of freedom that resides in your slovenliness, at least once.

This is your time! The waistline digs into my pelvis. The elastic at the top of the stretchy belly flap leaves a deep ridge under my bra line and revs up my ever-persistent heartburn. It takes several minutes of cautious half-hops to pull the jeans up and over my bum, and later, after a brief rest, several more minutes of heavy breathing to peel them off again. Is it truly to feel good about ourselves? Or is it to impress? Do we try to hide the discomfort of pregnancy by dressing like nothing about our bodies has changed, a sort of inverse of Victorian maternity methodology?

Do we document growing bumps and the ways we accessorize them to catalog our memories like family heirlooms? Or is it to rack up likes?

The answers, I imagine, differ from pregnant body to pregnant body. Because the only all-embracing truth of that salve lies in finding pleasure where you can and cherishing it.

I peer down at my dirty sneakers, my overwashed yoga pants, my year-old T-shirt. She may look perfect, but what is her life, and her pregnancy, really like? She endures her own traumas and anxiety, as does every pregnant woman — not to mention every woman who yearns to be pregnant — no matter what fantastical images they project. And we each seek our own comfort food, edible or not. Jenny Mollen and her commenter have ice cream. Fashionable women have fashionable clothes.

I expect that my kid will tell me so. Later, the maternal-fetal specialist, of the Canadian maple leaf socks, furrows his brow at my turtle derby T-shirt.