MM Body changes
During pregnancy, everyone talks about your pelvic floor coming under strain. But did you know that your abdominal muscles are also…
Taking the strain
How many times during your pregnancy have you had to tell people that you’re ‘not ill’ and ‘just pregnant’ when they’re offering to help you with tasks that you’re more than capable of? That’s certainly true, but the simple fact
is that certain parts of your body do come under strain during your pregnancy, such as your back and stomach muscles. Don’t forget that, as your pregnancy
progresses and as your baby grows, your abdominal muscles – which act like a corset around your middle – are stretched to their limit. As a result, they can often separate or split: a condition that is known diastasis recti.
What’s normal and what’s not So, how can you tell whether your abdominal muscles are simply stretched, or are actually split? ‘Checking for diastasis recti is simple,’ says Anya Hayes, a member of the Body
4 Modernmum
1. Place three fingers just in the centre of your abdominals, above the navel.
2. Palpate (press firmly down) to have a feel of the muscles.
3.Gently lift your head and continue to press down, and feel how your muscles react. A diastasis recti gap is measured
Control Pilates Association and author of ‘Pilates for Pregnancy’, ‘but promise me you will ask a professional to check you, as well as having a feel for yourself. ‘Lie on your back on a mat on the floor.
in finger distance: one-two fingers is normal post-delivery.
4.As you lift your head, connect to your centre: pelvic floor and transversus abdominis, so that you can have an idea of the tone of the linea alba: even if there is a significant ‘gap’, the presence of tone in the muscle indicates that it is functional, and this is the most important thing. If, however, it feels like you’re pressing deeply into a soft blancmange without any tone underneath your pressure, that is a serious gap, which needs to be looked at by a physio.
‘Diastasis recti,’ Anya continues, ‘is a NORMAL STRUCTURAL ADAPTATION – I say that in shouty capitals because I’ve had clients asking me how they can avoid it during pregnancy. It is a totally normal thing, and trying to prevent it from happening would be like preventing a tadpole from growing legs.
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