What Diastasis Recti Looks Like During Pregnancy

When I was pregnant, I got a cold and a terrible cough. I coughed so much one night that my abs were actually sore the next morning. When I mentioned it to my husband (a super-smart scientist, by the way), he said, “You have abs?” And he didn’t mean it in a snarky way because I looked like I had a basketball under my shirt. He meant it like he thought they just magically disappeared during pregnancy or something — like the muscles were no longer there. So I pretty much called him a dummy and made him feel how tense my abs were to prove that, yes, they still existed even though they were in a different shape.

All that to say: While your abs certainly don’t disappear during pregnancy, they do stretch out, and if they stretch out enough you might experience diastasis recti, which means that your abdominals separate down the middle. Sara Haley recently shared a video with us about how she discovered a diastasis during her second pregnancy — she shows you what it looks like — with tips on how to see if you’ve got one too and how to engage your transverse abdominals to support your midsection.

Can’t see the video? See Sara Haley discuss diastasis recti with tips for prevention here!

We can’t wait to follow up with Sara to see what she did postpartum to help heal her diastasis recti! Stay tuned. —Erin