Kristina Rihanoff Opens Up About Difficult First Month Of Motherhood

Former Strictly Come Dancing star Kristina Rihanoff can make light work of throwing rhythmically-challenged celebs around a dancefloor, but she’s admitted that motherhood has proved a far more difficult kettle of fish.

The 38-year-old ballroom dancer has opened up about her first month of being a mum and admits there have been times when she’s felt ‘down’.

Writing on her Hello! magazine blog, 38-year-old Kristina said: “The first month of motherhood as a first time mum was really challenging to be honest. It wasn’t an easy first month at all. I started feeling myself after about six or seven weeks.

“I can openly say that some days are amazing but some days I felt a little down. You feel like you can’t even get up and cook something or walk around because you don’t have the energy.”

Kristina and former Strictly co-star Ben Cohen welcomed baby daughter Mia back in June following a traumatic 19-hour labour. The delivery took so long because the umbilical cord was wrapped around little Mia’s neck and kept pulling her back.

Luckily Kristina and Ben have been able to call on her mum for help, who ended up staying at the Cohen-Rihanoff household for the first few weeks of Mia’s life to help out with nappy changing duties.

Of course, these days celebrity mums don’t just have to worry about changing nappies and 3am feeds – there’s the all-important matter to getting that pre-baby body back.

“So many people told me I was going to bounce back and get my dancer’s body back,” she said. “But your body just goes through a crazy transformation during pregnancy and after labour it took me a while to get used to exercising but once I got back into it I felt OK.”

Kristina and Ben met after falling prey to the infamous ‘Curse of Strictly’ when they were paired together on the show in 2013, a relationship which led to the rugby star splitting with Abbey Blayney, his wife of 13 years. He is also father to twins Isabelle and Harriet from their marriage.