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Mothers often seek to hide or edit pictures of their stretch marks after giving birth.
But this American mom decided to start a movement on social media to encourage women to embrace their stretch marks.
Talmesha Jones, from Texas, developed stretch marks after giving birth to her son, Chase, five years ago and felt.
“Being pregnant, it changed my body a lot,” Talmesha told Metro News. “It resulted in me getting stretch marks, wrinkles, and extra skin.
“The stretch marks are pretty much everywhere now.”
And like many other moms who are left with stretch marks after giving birth, the 27-year-old felt rather insecure about the way her body looks, the Daily Mail reports.
“It made me very self-conscious. I didn’t like to look at myself in the mirror.
“When I did, I would just cry and sob about it. I would continuously suck my stomach,” she says.
The part-time model’s confidence took a bigger knock when she received online abuse about her marks from internet trolls.
But in 2009 Talmesha’s friend, Johnathan, persuaded her to pose for a quick photoshoot to get her to embrace her stretch marks, Viral Thread reports.
“After the baby, she was really, really body conscious,” Johnathan says. “She got into a little bit of a depressive state.
“What made her change her outlook was realising that it could be something that makes her unique and makes her special.”
After her first shoot, the mom-of-one changed her attitude – which sparked her to start the #TigerStripedOnATuesday campaign on Instagram to inspire women to embrace their stretch marks.
“I started to realise they weren’t going anywhere and constantly bringing myself down about it wasn’t positive, it wasn’t helping me in any way,” she says.
Unsurprisingly, the hashtag has received plenty of support from mothers all over the world and Talmesha hopes they’ll have the same outlook as her one day.
“I absolutely believe that one day everyone will think that stretch marks are a sexy thing, that they’re beautiful and it will no longer have a stigma behind it,” she says.
“If I had a chance to get rid of my stretch marks fully, would I? No. I wouldn’t.
“It would feel wrong to erase such a huge part of myself and it has helped me find who I was.”
Sources: metro.co.uk, dailymail.co.uk, viralthread.com
