Beyonce: My emergency C-section to save me and my twins
Singer reveals she ballooned to 15 stone… but has learned to love her ‘mummy pouch’
BEYONCE has revealed that her twins had to be delivered by emergency caesarean section because her life and the lives of the babies were at risk.
As a result, she says she still has not regained her normal body shape – but is happy with her ‘mummy pouch’.
The singer had posted pictures of herself heavily pregnant with Rumi and Sir in May last year.
But as her due date neared, her body swelled to 15st 8lb due to severe toxemia, she revealed in an interview.
The condition, also known as preeclampsia, is marked by high blood pressure and swelling due to fluid retention.
As a result, Beyonce was put on bed rest. But in mid-June doctors decided to bring the births forward.
The singer, 36, who is married to hip hop star Jay-Z, told US Vogue magazine: ‘My health and my babies’ health were in danger, so I had an emergency C-section. We spent many weeks in NICU [neonatal intensive care unit].
‘I was in survival mode and did not grasp it all until months later. Today I have a connection to any parent who has been through such an experience.’
Of Jay-Z, 48, she said: ‘My husband was a soldier and such a strong support system for me. I am proud to have been a witness to his strength and evolution as a man, a best friend and a father.’
Beyonce said that after the Csection her body felt ‘different’ and that she ‘needed time to heal’. She revealed that she has learned to love her ‘mummy pouch’ that developed after the birth.
She said: ‘I embraced being curvier. I accepted what my body wanted to be.’
After six months of recovery, Beyonce began to prepare for the Coachella music festival, held in April in California.
For a time she followed a vegan diet as well as giving up coffee, alcohol and fruit drinks.
‘But I was patient with myself and enjoyed my fuller curves,’ she said. ‘My kids and husband did, too. To this day my arms, shoulders, breasts, and thighs are fuller. I have a little mummy pouch, and I’m in no rush to get rid of it.
Beyonce, who is in the middle of a European and North American tour with Jay-Z, said she will work hard in the gym to regain her figure ‘whenever I’m ready’.
She added that after the birth of her first daughter, Blue Ivy, in January 2012, she ‘believed in the things society said about how my body should look’. She explained:
‘I went into survival mode’
‘I put pressure on myself to lose all the baby weight in three months, and scheduled a small tour to assure I would do it.
‘Looking back, that was crazy. I was still breastfeeding. After the twins, I approached things very differently.’ The singer’s unusually candid revelations were made in an unconventional interview for US Vogue’s September edition over which she was given unprecedented control.
She submitted her views in essay form and reportedly had the final say over every aspect of the article. In the accompanying photos she appears in hardly any make-up and is wearing elegant haute-couture gowns and bright floral headpieces.
The photos were taken by Tyler Mitchell, 23, who is the first African American to shoot the cover of US Vogue. Beyonce also discussed her family tree, saying that she comes from a ‘lineage of broken male-female relationships, abuse of power, and mistrust’.
‘I researched my ancestry recently and learned that I come from a slave owner who fell in love with and married a slave,’ the singer said, adding that she had to understand her own past in order to ‘resolve the conflicts’ in her own marriage – a reference to allegations that Jay-Z, her husband of ten years, cheated on her.
She has previously referred to infidelity on her album Lemonade, in which she sang about a mysterious woman called ‘Becky with the good hair’. She said: ‘I’ve been through hell and back, and I’m grateful for every scar. I have experienced betrayals and heartbreaks in many forms. I have had disappointments in business partnerships as well as personal ones, and they all left me feeling neglected, lost, and vulnerable.
‘Through it all I have learned to laugh and cry and grow.’