Social media star's honest confession: 'Giving birth ruined my vagina'

As many women will agree, pregnancy and birth is no walk in the park – it really takes a toll on your body.

However, the journey doesn’t end there. After giving birth not only have you got another person in your life to think about, but many struggle with how much their bodies change afterwards.

YouTube star Colleen Ballinger recently shared her story about the struggles she faced ‘down there’ in two candid videos titled ‘How pregnancy ruined my body‘ and ‘What pregnancy did to my vagina and breasts’.

“Women are often told not to talk about their bodies in any other way than a sexual way,” the 33-year-old explained. “But rarely to hear someone be like, hey I have stitches all over my vagina or I have veins all over my boobs let me show you.

“I think it’s important for a woman to show all the different types of things that can happen to our bodies.”

Colleen gave birth to her son, Flynn, two months ago, and she admitted she didn’t exactly know how many vaginal tears she suffered, but was just told by doctors there were “a lot”.

“To give you an idea of how many stitches I had, the doctor was stitching me for over an hour,” she said.

Initially, Colleen was “afraid” to look but plucked up the courage to do so after two weeks.

“I don’t know what it looked like right after, but two weeks after I gave birth it made me cry, like, sob cry when I looked,” Colleen revealed. “Because it didn’t look like a vagina anymore.”

What she could only describe as a “disaster”, Colleen had a lot of stitches right around her inner and outer vagina, down to her “butthole”.

“The hole of my vagina was large when I looked at it,” she continued. “It was large and it looked like my insides were pouring out of my vagina.

“It literally looked like the intestines were trying to escape my vagina.”

Colleen went on to explain went she went to her six-week check up with her doctor, who described everything as “looked good”.

However, she expressed she has fears her vagina will “never look or feel the same again” despite having reassurances from other mothers that it will.

The social media star also detailed how after giving birth her boobs and nipples got “a lot bigger” and how she has lots of “veins all over them”.

Colleen admitted she hoped her video will be able to help others going through the same struggles and insecurities.

“If I can make one woman out there feel less alone in this experience, then it’s worth it,” she said.

What an inspiring woman – we need more people like Colleen candidly sharing their stories to break down barriers and stereotypes.

Watch the full video on Colleen’s YouTube channel.

Got a story tip? Send it to lifestyle.tips@verizonmedia.com

Want more lifestyle and celebrity news? Follow Yahoo Lifestyle on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Or sign up to our daily newsletter here.