One of my goals in training my pregnant and postpartum clients is to make Diastasis Recti less scary.
At the same time, I want you to be well educated and understand the workings of diastasis so we don’t aggravate issues and so we can heal the abdominals well after pregnancy.
No Fear + Better Education + Correct Exercises = Better Healing of Diastasis Recti
And so, I’m showing you my first diastasis recti assessment on MYSELF at 3 weeks postpartum today.
But first, a pic of baby Steele 😉 She also makes a cameo in the video!
The full video assessment is below. I walk you through what I’m feeling for and what it all means.
PART 1: Intro, what I’m assessing for, what I’ll be feeling for, what my abdominal wall looks like at 3 weeks postpartum.
PART 2: The actual assessment, where I’m feeling a separation, how the quality of my connective tissue is coming along.
What I Found:
–> Above my belly button:
As I expected, I can feel almost a 3-finger width gap above my belly button. Baby Steele’s bum was hanging out here while she was on the inside the whole time, and so I expected the largest separation to be here.
*When I do my Core + Floor Connection Breath I am able to generate quite good tension here – good sign!
–> At my belly button:
The separation is almost 3-fingers wide here, as well. Again, as expected because there was a lot of pressure sticking out at this area of my belly throughout a long pregnancy.
*When I do my Core + Floor Connection Breath I am able to generate quite good tension here – good sign!
–> Below my belly button:
Interestingly enough, before pregnancy I had almost a 2-finger wide separation below my belly button thanks to years of gymnastics conditioning training (eg. a million leg raises, crunches, jackknifes, etc).
That being said, the separation is no larger post-pregnancy. Have to thank good core exercises, proper strength training, and good alignment for this!
*When I do my Core + Floor Connection Breath I am able to generate very good tension here.
What I’m Doing to Heal my Diastasis:
For the first 2 weeks postpartum I did nothing but rest, eat, take cary of Steele, and worked on my breathing.
I would take the stairs in our house a couple times a day, but I didn’t go for any walks. I walked only when we went for quick errands (around the drugstore, a couple aisles in the grocery store).
Starting at 2 weeks postpartum I began Core + Floor Restore. A structured program of healing and strengthening my core and pelvic floor.
I also started to wear my compression shorts from SRC Health at this time.
This will be my focus for the next 8 weeks. Not sure when I’ll start “real” workouts. Not thinking too much about it yet.
I start pelvic floor physiotherapy in 2 weeks and I’m very much looking forward to that!
Why I’m NOT Freaking Out:
This. Is. Normal. Read this article for more on how most women will likely develop diastasis recti in pregnancy.
Having the abdominals separate during pregnancy is a very normal occurrence.
My abdominal wall will heal. It will be fine. I have no reason to stress!
Squishy Abdominals:
Something that I was so looking forward to understanding and feeling the sensation of post-pregnancy, was feeling the squishiness of my abdominal wall.
Not just in a “I have more fat” kind of way (which is totally fine), but also in a “there’s no tension in these abdominals!” kind of way (also, to be expected).
I’ve gotta say, It’s been so interesting to feel my abdominal wall be so squishy! The other cool part about this is feeling the tension, slowly, coming back.
The body is so damn amazing.
Will update you when I reassess in 2 weeks time. If you want to stay up to date on more details of my postpartum recovery you can grab a spot on my email list here.
Jess
