The Flory-Rehner approach to the swelling of polymer networks is modified so as to abandon the affine deformation assumption, instead using the assumptions of the c* model of de Gennes. The resulting model, in which the mixing term is also modified to account for hydrogen bonding, is applied to coal networks. The results indicate that the number of statistical segments between junction points is small and in treating the swelling of coal networks energetic terms will probably have to be taken into account.