Congratulations: You are a new mom, and along with the new title comes a different body. Your postnatal body needs lots of TLC, particularly your abdominal muscles, which have experienced extensive change over the course of your pregnancy and during childbirth.
To make room for your growing baby, your abdominals had to separate and divide—this is called diastasis recti. All women will have some degree of diastasis recti after pregnancy and your first physical hurdle as a new mom is to heal and close the separation.
Mastering how to assess your abdominal separation is key to tracking your progress and the healing process. You should continue to assess your abdominals until you have healed your diastasis—this might take six weeks, or it might take six months or more. Just keeping working on it!
We measure diastasis three ways—length, width, and depth. Learning how to self assess your abs is really important, as it helps track your success and works as an excellent guide to ensure that you are progressing at the right pace and are ready for the next phase of your recovery exercises.
