The viral photo that shows exactly what a body looks like hours after giving birth.

Sarah Turner, who goes by The Unmumsy Mum on Facebook, this week shared two photos of her favourite moments following the birth of her son, Wilf.

The mother of three has more than 600,000 followers on Facebook, and brands herself as a “big fan of honesty”.

Her post began, “Looking back through pics of Wilf’s birth and these two are hands down my faves, for very different reasons…

“After initially thinking ‘I can’t share that!’ I realised it’s less flesh than it would be if I shared my ‘bikini body’ and represents the postpartum reality so well,” Turner wrote.

“I was absolutely euphoric at this point, despite walking like John Wayne and wearing an adult nappy. I cannot tell you how much we were laughing by this stage either, mostly at how lucky James [husband] is.”

Turner, 30, is pictured standing in the doorway of her hospital room, barely able to stand up straight, wearing only an adult nappy. Her stomach is not immaculately flat – but rather she shares that days later her son Jude asked; “Is the baby still in there?”.

The author hashtagged the post, #postpartumreality, #imavailableformodelling and #adultnappiesforthewin.

The post, which has been up since Thursday, has received 36,000 reactions and attracted comments from mums all over the world.

LISTEN: Why Tiffany Hall decided to share an image of her post baby body. 

One woman wrote, “That pic of you in the nappy brings it back! Haha totally remember that feeling of my first walk to the bathroom after the epidural wore off and my jelly belly swinging…” with another sharing her story, “After I’d had my son, I was made to go for a wee and as I sat on the loo I realised there was a full length mirror directly in front of me on the wall. What kind of sadistic person puts a full length mirror on a wall in a maternity room bathroom…”

A scroll through Instagram sees many women sharing pictures of themselves in a bikini only weeks after giving birth, celebrating their flat stomach, bearing almost no trace of having carried a baby.

But for the majority of women, that is simply not what their bodies look like. Nor is it their priority.

And the more we represent the postpartum body with a swollen stomach and a massive adult nappy, the better.

You can listen to the full episode of No Filter with Tiffany Hall, here.