Ladies with separated abs - what did you do & how long did it take?

[marmoset]

At 3 months pp things have settled down physically and it turns out my abdominal muscles are separated - there's about a 1-1.5 inch gap down the center between the left and right sides. It's kinda freaking me out - anybody have a story of how you fixed this?

 

[Willow01]

I had a four inch gap and spent a lot of time at physio appointments trying to close them again! They are still not fully back together again and that is a year on. I think two big babies have just ruined my muscles!

 

[Starlight32]

I have a gap

I'm very tiny and had s large baby in comparison to my size which resulted in a c section. I don't see my abs ever coming back together. Does your belly button dip in? That's what mine looks like because my ab muscles are off to the sides. Almost 5 months pp.

 

[Witchrose]

Hi.

Yeah, I had that. (ten pound baby and c-sec). First, it's really important to know that a lot of normal exercise which is usually great for you, is the worst thing if you have separated muscles. Until it's fixed, avoid any usual ab exercise like crunches, planks, pushups, any twisty moves. Even high impact cardio can worsen it. If you look it up, you'll see articles that list the slew of exercises to avoid.

Okay, so to be on the safe side, once I realized I had it, I simply walked 30- 60 minutes daily to help with losing the pregnancy weight gain, and also did specific exercises for the diagnis recti every day. You can find vids on YouTube.

After about 3 months of doing the diagnis recti exercises, the gap closed. Then I started up my normal exercise again. (once the gap is healed, THEN things like planks are fantastic for toning the abs)

Good luck!