Diastasis Recti

Diastasis recti is more commonly known as abdominal separation. It is an increase in the distance between your abdominal muscles due to the stretching of the connective tissue (line alba) that joins them together.

This is a completely normal process that occurs during pregnancy. In fact, it needs to happen to make room for your baby!

This is different for everyone! The research shows that many remain wider than normal at 12 weeks’ post-partum. Often abdominal separation can go away on its own but there are many things we can do to help rebuild strength and control through your abdominal and assist in recovery.

The first step is to get your separation assessed by a women’s health physiotherapist so that they can determine the distance and the quality of the tissue and see how this fits with how functional you are and the goals you have.

Two simple things that you can begin to do to help with your recovery are:

1. Abdominal compression: this can be done via high waisted tights, SRC compression shorts or other forms compression (such as tubigrip).
2. Mini crunches/curl ups: this helps to start introducing load in a safe way that won’t put stress on the line alba. This is best to be done under supervision at first.

Check out our Women’s Health Page to learn more about women’s health physiotherapy and our team! We look forward to helping you.

As always feel free to message us on the chat box, email or book in online at 1 of our 5 locations in Sydney;