Can I prevent Diastasis Recti?

A lot of you guys asked this recently and so I wanted to talk about it as I feel there is a lot of misinformation out there.

The truth is we cannot prevent diastasis recti and it isn’t something to be feared. Research has shown that 100% of women have some abdominal separation at 35 weeks of pregnancy. So our focus shouldn’t be on preventing it and there are no exercise programmes that can prevent it, so please don’t buy them.

It is natural to ask, can I prevent it being worse than it could be. Well, from research we don’t have anything backed up, but as physios we would often recommend the following:

– modifying movements and exercise where you see a visible doming or coning down the middle of your tummy is recommended eg getting in and out of bed by rolling onto your side

– there are no absolute best exercises to do prevent diastasis but monitoring yourself and your tummy.

– don’t panic if you do see a doming, just modify, try something different.

– bowel health is key. Constipation is common in pregnancy and straining to opens our bowels which increases pressure on the connective tissue (linea alba down the centre). Feet up on a stool and deeps breaths prevents this excessive pushing

It is also important to recognise we are all different going into pregnancy, and everyone’s linea alba (connective tissue that stretches causing diastasis recti) is different before pregnancy. Also everyones genetics are different and this also has a place within the picture. Don’t fear exercise in pregnancy for this reason as it has so many benefits but just keep an eye and modify where needed.

I hope this is helpful and explains the natural process we all go through to allow our babies to grow.

I recently did a live with @absolute.physio where we chat all about this so check out my IGTV for more info.

Have you ever been told you can prevent diastasis? ??