First, I want to say to all you ladies out there who are pregnant/getting pregnant/have kids, to please try to do what you can to prevent Diastasis Recti. Strengthen your transverse abdominals... these are the inner abdominal muscles. There are a lot of youtube videos that show how to engage them and strengthen them (here is one). These exercises are also used to help try to heal Diastasis. Once you get this condition, it is very difficult to heal, and it will not be completely healed without hard work to keep things together. Also, some people require surgery with how bad it is. There are varying degrees. And if you have this condition, stay away from any exercises involving twisting with weight, crunches, etc.
Anyway, I learned that I had a very slight Diastasis after my son was born (measured 1 finger width at 1 week post partum... so it likely healed completely within the first month after birth which is completely normal). His labor was the simplest. I didn't have to try to work at second stage... my muscles did everything on their own. It was so fast it was scary, actually. My third child, Baby A, I found much more difficult. Labor was quick enough, but stage two I actually had to work at. I remember looking huge with her, showing quickly. I figured it was because she was my third, my body was used to this and just 'expanded'. I never bothered checking for Diastasis after her birth, but I likely had some separation. I do remember my tummy being more 'floppy' and loose after her birth, and finding it more difficult to do simple tasks like standing, or even walking. My back hurt a lot in the last stages of pregnancy, and for a little while post partum, but it wasn't terrible. A lot of that I attributed to the extreme pph I had (which, I found out, was more severe due to me actively pushing harder than I should have, and during times I wasn't actively contracting because I wanted her out NOW).
After my fourth, it was very different.
I could hardly stand after she was born. I had the energy, that wasn't the issue... the problem was I had zero core strength. I literally had to hold my stomach in order to walk to the bathroom. I had no idea the problem was diastasis... once again I attributed it to giving birth to a baby... cause hey, that is no small task! What I didn't understand was WHY that labor didn't stabilize (mine usually only lasted 2 hours, but this one was 5 and contractions were unpredictable). I had INCREDIBLE back pain in the last month or so of pregnancy. It was horrible. And I had false labor from my due date until the day she was born... 13 days overdue.
Most of that was actually due to Diastasis.
You see, I am guessing that sometime during the last bit of my third pregnancy, I got further separation... and since I didn't know it, I didn't actively try to heal it. I didn't weigh much, my waist was 'normal' and while I had that little belly, it wasn't a huge deal to me at the time. When I got pregnant with my fourth, my muscles were already separated, so things showed much sooner. Also, when you have a muscle gap, your internal organs push out through that gap. I didn't have any symptoms of pregnancy with my fourth... while my third was horrible in the first trimester. A lot of symptoms have to do with internal pressure. Need to get up during the night to use the washroom? Yeah... I never had that with my last pregnancy, and sometime during my third trimester I didn't have it anymore with my third, either. Can't eat much due to squished stomach? Didn't have that problem either. Back pain and burning upper abdomen? Those are things associated with muscle separation AND pregnancy, and I had them in spades!
Oh... and here is a pic of my pregnant belly when I went in.
Basically, it looks like my entire uterus is outside my abdominal cavity... something that makes sense now when I look back on it. It also explains my strange labor. The contractions ranged from 2 minutes apart to 6 minutes apart to 1 minute apart while in active labor. And baby wouldn't engage properly. She was rotating while I was in labor... one minute her back was over here on my left... then it was on my right, then she was kicking the Doppler. It was insane. When I stood up, things got going again, and then I had to try to lean over to help her move into the proper position with her back to my stomach. I wanted to attempt pushing in a position NOT on my back, but the contractions wouldn't do anything... until I was on my back. Why? Because the muscle gap meant that the uterus was not receiving the pressure it needed to help engage everything. My pushing did very little until I was on my back and didn't have the added pressure of the organs and uterus stretching the muscles further.
These findings just blow me away!
And so... I'm really hoping to rejoin my muscles. I'm really hoping to heal. However, this seems to be something that will never actually fully heal. I will always need to try to remember to engage my transverse abdominals. Retrain myself. And I will need to be careful about lifting heavy things for fear of reversing the work I've already done.
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