Emily Ratajkowski says that motherhood taught her to relinquish 'control' of her body

Emily Ratajkowski welcomed her son Sylvester into the world with husband Sebastian Bear-McClard earlier this year, and she explained how becoming a mum allowed her to trust her body more than she had done so previously.

The 30-year-old model told Vice: "In some ways, your body is still a tool when you're pregnant and when you're giving birth, like it's a way of getting someone into the world."

"But for me it was more about the trust I had to have for my body that I'd never had. Obviously a big theme in the book (My Body) is control, and in pregnancy and motherhood, you sort of have to let go of control in order to be happy, and also for your child to be happy."

The star described pregnancy as a "really strange experience", but one she learned a lot from.

She added: "It was this really strange experience to wake up every day and be like, 'Okay, my body is growing, there's all these things happening and there's no way to know exactly if it's doing exactly what it should be doing, if my son is totally safe, if I'm totally safe.'

And I had to kind of let go of control, and release control, in order to enjoy my pregnancy.

"With birth, the more you trust your body, the more you are likely to have a better birth experience, because you just relax. So I did that, and it was a wonderful lesson in the release of control."

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"As for feeling connected to the body — that's an everyday thing. I try to do that, but I don't always do it."

Emily is also pleased to see that her essay collection My Body has resonated with so many women.

She explained: "It's felt really amazing to connect to so many women — young women in particular — and it's also felt like, 'Wow, I really put a lot of myself out there into the world.'

"Overall, I'd say it feels really good to have made something that feels really honest, and I'm enjoying that part of it — knowing that whatever anybody might feel about the book, there's just so much honesty in what I made."