First Meal After Pregnancy Is Now A Social Media Trend

When you’re pregnant, there’s a long list of food and drinks you’re not supposed to have, and after nine long months of that, a lot of moms are ready to indulge. They’re ready to taste these forbidden foods they’ve been avoiding for the better part of a year after giving birth and a new trend on social media has new mothers sharing their first post-birth meals.

These women may be in the hospital with their newborns, but the videos show there’s not a plate of hospital food in sight. Instead, they’re dining on sushi and fast food and popping a bottle of bubbly.

• One of the new moms sharing her impressive post-birth feast on social media is Caitlyn Schollmeier, who just welcomed her baby girl, Lorelei Elliot, on February 11th. The next day, she ordered $200 worth of sushi to her hospital room, calling it “almost like a little celebration.” Her video shows her chowing down on an array of sushi while holding her newborn, including spicy tuna rolls, which she says were the “hardest thing to go without.”
• Another woman getting in on the trend is Rose Simard, who had her baby girl in January 2023 and a few hours later, she dined on the meal she’d been dreaming of for months. The mom from Montreal, Canada, had chicken tenders with a side of poutine (French fries topped with cheese curds and gravy) from her favorite restaurant and a glass of champagne to go with it. "You've just brought a new life into the world, it's an incredibly special and momentous occasion,” says Simard. “I firmly believe that this is a time for celebration and self-indulgence.”

The hashtag #postbirthmeal on social media has hundreds of videos of new moms in the hospital treating themselves to pizza, burgers, oysters on the half shell and lots and lots of sushi. No matter what they were craving, they probably all agree with Simard, who says, “A standard hospital meal doesn’t do it justice.”