Diastasis Recti Information

One of the common, or can be common problems or adverse effects, as you could say with pregnancy, is what is called a diastasis. Essentially what happens is during pregnancy, as your belly grows, your abdominal muscles are stretched to the maximum and they actually stretch away from the connective tissue that runs a down the center of the abdomen. So when that happens and it occurs, it can occur as a natural, it occurs, but when it happens march dramatically, we call it a diastasis. And you can tell with women that are pregnant, uh, when they come up and deflection, for instance, if you were to come up into a chest lift, uh, they get a little, a little pop, like a cone shape. And that's the sign that a diastasis has occurred, that complete separation of the abdominals from the connective tissue. So when we're postpartum, that is obviously still going to be there. So again, it's not effective and can actually exacerbate the issue if we go into abdominal exercises like chest lift in the hundred two, soon postpartum.

So we want to make sure that we take plenty of time for those muscles to heal properly to start to come back together. So this way we want some gentle rolling, some gentle activation of the abdominal muscles. So, um, there is a way to tell on yourself, um, or to telling your clients if they have a diastasis. Uh, also you could ask your, uh, your physician or your midwife to also check for you as well. So the way that we do this is very simple, is you want to lie down on your back. You want to take your fingers, I'll just lift my shirt up a little bit here. Just above your naval, you want to place them horizontally to your navel. You want to lift the head, neck and chest up and you should feel if there's a little gap, basically your fingers will sink down into that little space. So it's very normal to have one to two and that's normal to happen. That little space directly postpartum and over time with proper exercises and proper exercise modifications that will heal if you have three finger spaces or more thing, you have a obviously a bigger problem to, um, to deal with and you have to make even more ma exercise modifications.

So again, just very gentle when you're lying down fingertips just above your navel. You want to lift your head up off the mat so you'll feel your abdominal muscles engage and you'll feel that little sink. And if you can fit more than two fingers down in that space, then you have a little bit more concerned for your diastasis that you need to work with. So just a nice way for you to telling yourself or for you to check with your clients. Thanks.