Is diastases recti really that bad?

It’s misinformation time again…

I might be a little passionate about this one.

Why? 

I was a victim too back when we didn’t know any better. 

Now we do.

A story on Good Morning America about Ashley Tisdale began as a story about how hard it is to navigate postpartum & ended with some unfortunately common misinformation about diastasis recti. The advice this doctor was providing was literally out of the year 2000.

Let’s make a few things abundantly clear about diastasis recti:

♦️It’s not painful

♦️It’s not preventable 

♦️Sit ups are not damaging

♦️You aren’t broken with DRA

Instead, can we update what we DO know:

🟢All women have DRA in pregnancy

🟢Cat/cows aren’t enough

🟢DRA isn’t a sentence for lifelong inactivity

🟢Pain may mean hernia NOT DRA

🟢Surgery is a LAST resort

🟢Physical Therapy 1st

The second you conceive is the second you lose control. We should be focusing on education instead of prevention because some things are impossible to prevent.

Diastasis recti DOES NOT mean you’re broken! Abdominal separation HAS to happen! You don’t want to prevent that!

Literally, at least once a week, someone comes in saying they need treatment for their diastasis recti. (I’m serious, it’s the gateway drug to postpartum physical therapy). They have leakage, but they won’t come in for that. They will come in because they don’t like the way their abdomen pooches out. 

DRA just isn’t that big of a deal. If you have pain, we need to make sure you don’t have an umbilical hernia because that IS a big deal. 

Stop telling moms that cat-cow is enough, because it isn’t.  

We are not delicate and I will tell you from experience. When my youngest was 3 and I was doing these tiny “strengthening” exercises (because that’s all I thought I could do), I felt so weak.

What do I do now? Whatever the hell I want! I bend, lift, overhead press, snatch. And I’m fine. And I’m strong. 

We shouldn’t be afraid and we need to stop scaring moms. What have you been told about DRA?