“Looking good for postpartum” isn’t the compliment we think it is—Kylie Kelce has a better idea

On her podcast Not Gonna Lie, Kylie Kelce highlights how the common praise moms receive after birth can be harmful, especially when it focuses on the pressure to quickly “bounce back.”

From stretch marks to strength, she’s reframing how we talk about real recovery.

Kylie Kelce has four kids, a podcast, and zero time for toxic compliments.

On a recent episode of Not Gonna Lie, she opened up about a familiar postpartum experience—being told you “look amazing” after birth. And while she knows it’s meant to be encouraging, she’s asking us to think twice.

“For all of the people who are in the comments saying things like, ‘You look fantastic after having Finn’ or ‘You look amazing after having your fourth’… First of all, I know that you mean that nicely, but at the end of the day, if I looked like this and I hadn’t just had my fourth child, would you say I look tired? Because yes, I’m very tired.”

Related: Kylie Kelce’s dos and don’ts for talking to postpartum moms (because some of y’all need a reminder)

It’s a moment that hits. Because most moms have heard it: “You look great for just having a baby!” And while it might sound positive, Kelce gently pulls the thread on what these comments really say about our expectations of women after birth.

“My point is that we don’t need to comment on the fact that a woman is postpartum and how she is doing with her postpartum journey physically. And I think we should be more concerned about the overall well-being of women postpartum. I don’t think that we need to bounce back.”

Stretch marks, strength, and saying what we mean

In a moment that will resonate with anyone navigating their postpartum body, Kelce shares:

“There are some things that we, as women who have just grown humans, cannot bounce back. I can’t bounce back my stretch marks. They’re with me forever. Do I like them? Let’s be honest, no. I liked when my tummy didn’t have a bunch of little ridges in it. But guess what? It does. Do I still look damn good? Yes.”

There’s no performative body positivity here. Just real talk about the duality so many moms feel—pride in what their bodies have done, and grief over how those bodies have changed.

Related: Kylie Kelce shuts down harmful claim that C-sections aren’t “real” births

A cultural shift—and a call to reframe

Kelce’s honesty taps into a larger conversation about postpartum care, body image, and the quiet pressure to “recover” in ways that center appearance instead of health. That pressure often shows up in well-meaning comments—especially on social media.

Kelce suggests that paying attention to how a mom is feeling matters more than focusing on her appearance.

In the same episode, Mandy Moore shares her own experience navigating labels like “geriatric pregnancy,” which reflects another layer of judgment and bias in maternal care. But what ties it all together is the need to center moms—not metrics or milestones—in every part of the postpartum journey.

As Kelce puts it, the changes motherhood brings are not setbacks but experiences to embrace and grow from.