‘Mummy jobs’, in which cosmetic surgeons set out to erase all evidence of childbirth from a woman’s body, are already big business in the US. Now they are catching on here. Viv Groskop reports on a disturbing trend - and asks three mothers how they really feel about their post-baby bodies 

Mummy jobs are the next logical step in the battle to pretend that having a baby need not change you. Three years ago, New York magazine ran a report about women in Manhattan who maintained disordered, quasi-anorexic eating throughout pregnancy in order to stay as thin as possible. The ultimate goal is not to have to graduate into maternity wear at all. In America, mom-to-be clothes shops recently started stocking size zero for the first time. A survey at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore indicated that 21% of pregnant women had engaged in “weight-restrictive” behaviour. Read more