What Is a Diastasis and Can You Fix It? 

18 years post partum, after 2 c sections, and in the gym everyday, still looking pregnant, is so frustrating! The rest of my natural body is perfect! Thank you! I'm literally crying! 😢💖🙏🏽my gap is a fist!!!

Thank you for this very thorough explanation, it's something that very woman that has been through pregnancy and given birth knows about. I love the fact you re-iterate that it is normal (rather than something to worry about) and the degrees of width and where the diastasis appears.

I'm glad RU-vid suggested this video. This explains what is happening to me. I did core exercises for months and my diastasis wasn't healing and started having Prolapse symptoms. I stopped because I was not progressing and I started to do stretching exercises for splits. I had really tight hip flexors and hamstrings. This helped a lot with my posture and I noticed my diastasis started to magically heal. Thanks for sharing all this valuable information.

Thank you so much. I recently became an RMT and continually asked questions on this. I have wanted to heal mine for years as it makes me look bigger then I am and I miss my previous much smaller waist. I still have a bit of an hourglass the difference is shocking. I am so glad I found this and will be looking for more and sharing this with all my classmates

Great video. My OBGYN (who is normally pretty great) told me while I was pregnant that I didn’t have DR when I clearly did (wth?). After I gave birth it was much more obvious and I even had my husband check to make sure I wasn’t crazy. He could fit a couple finger tips across (3 at the belly button) four fingers down in length, and the depth was at least a couple knuckles down (I was afraid to press further). My take from this: you are the one living in your body. Do not give up if you think your healthcare provider is not giving you the time/attention needed/not taking you seriously/not listening/etc. You can ask for a second opinion or ask that they check again and repeat your concerns because . . . You may be right like me! Trust your instincts, listen to your body, and look out for yourselves. Thanks to videos like this I have been slowly but surely healing. Thank you for the information :)

You’re amazing. !!! Three years and I’ve found you, finally! 😁😭😄😁

Thanks so much for doing this video.

Great helpful and positive video! Thank you!

This is awesome! My client recommended you. :) while I'm watching you, Im like it rings the bell lol some of my clients have the same issues. I can use what you're teaching here to help them have a better posture. Thank you 🙏

Thank you. This is exellent. A good place to build from.❤🙏🏾

Very Informative. The explanations, visual examples, references to studies and the connection/correlation to other body issues was very helpful in gaining a more thorough understanding of Diastasis Recti. The importance of addressing and healing the whole body in conjunction with a Diastasis Recti was very enlightening. Thank You for taking the time to make this video. Good things to you.

OMG Sarah! This is gold! Thank you so so much for sharing so much valuable information! I am a medical doctor and I really wish more medical professionals educated themselves on this topic, especially gynecologists!

I found this very informative and now understand even more the importance of correct posture.

Dr. Sarah this is so awesome that you made this information available for us. I am weeks away from delivering my 5 th child and I was beginning to loose hope. You are absolutely right about the hanging into the hips issue. That’s how I stand most of the time. I looked at a few of my old postpartum post workout photos and my posture in those photos are exactly like your clients before you showed them the corrected posture. I’m serious both my arms hanging 🚶🏽‍♀️and the knees 🤦🏽‍♀️lol. I feel so motivated and I am glad I found this channel. I’m sooo looking forward to postpartum healing now. Okay off to your website now💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽💃🏽

This was a very good and informational video. 🙌🏼

Thanks for sharing this video with us!!!

Its given me hope - Yay - I've never been pregnant but 'some how' ended up with this problem anyways.. and for years i was doing more and more sit-ups in all variations along with other training, frustrated because my belly was getting bigger for no reason.. no one thought it was anything special, my mother kinda teased me with it, because now i wasn't so lean anymore, now i looked started to look like my family (i think she felt bad about herself and let it out on me) So im happy to hear someone talk about it like this, even tho you were just throwing muscles at us we had never heard of (wasn't that what you were saying).. Im sorry for the long rambling, English is my second language and its far past midnight, so i might not make a lot of sense - haha.. Anyways, thank you!

Excellent sharing! Thank you!

What a great lecture !!! Thank you

Loved it. very well put together presentation.

Very helpful. Thank you!

You hit the nail on the head at the very end when you mentioned the pulling UP of your pubic bone. Almost like forward rolling your your hips and leaving it there.

This helped so much, thank you

I am working towards it and definitely let you know the result of my journey to get my body back in shape

Very helpful. THANK YOU. We need more information for men with DR and we need more trainers, PTs, and docs who will assess men for this. :-)

Amazing ! Wow . more information please. Interesting.

I'm 39 6 kids ages 10-22 and I thought I was hopeless. I don't want surgery. This is self esteem and life changing for me.

You are Goooood! Thank You

Thank you, so much, for this incredible information, Sarah! Women everywhere really need this. If we could only get more medical and fitness professionals as well as "regular people" to understand this better, it would be so very helpful.....I'm thinking particularly of the "holding your belly button in" and some of the exercises to "get your body back," etc. It's such a shame; these things that they mean to help you can end up hurting you instead. A better understanding of how our bodies work could prevent some of the problems we develop, and I really appreciate your efforts to get the information out. Thank you! :)

This video es amazing, unique. Thanks so much.

You should have more subs. Thanks; great video. Just noticed I’ve got this problem. I’m male and always thought I was indestructible!!

Most informative

OMG - arch support and diastasis... who would have thought. But it makes sense, a crazy gait can lead to all types of problems.

I love your voice.

I have my 1st baby in 2004, and continue in each 2 years, 3 girls, so i didnt gain weight too much & i have no problem with the core coz i always done my exercise everyday. Then in 2016 i fell off from motorcycle, having scoliosis, have my 4th baby in 2017, and when he's 5mo he gotta get ready for another sister (5th). Blame no one. Few minutes after giving birth, i realized something's different with the belly i'd being proud of.. Confusing of what scoliosis with DR can/cant do, i found this vid. Funny, coz i was really feeling depress after knowing i can press my fist into the core, but after understand the condition by this video & following the exercise minus movement that can worst my spine, the gap is now not more than two fingers, in a week!! I thank u soooo much for giving away your knowledge & help me a lot. Now i have to search out the work out of the skin that seems gonna be more difficult..

I'm 19 yo man, I have diastasis recti and pectus excavatum, so things are double hard for me cause I gas out pretty quickly, but i won't give up. Cheers from Chile, and thanks for your videos, they really help me.

Quite informative

Really great informative video :) Thank you :)

Thank you!!!!!

Omg this is awesome

Thank you so much!

Thank you for taking the time to share this!

This is very informative, thank you. I have lots of posture issues and it seems like every day another muscle or joint is causing pain, my PT just looks at me like I'm crazy or something. Time to look for another PT.

Okay definitely going to give it a try! My DR has gotten better since I had my daughter in March. But it’s still there. I wear a waist trainer and do the workout videos for healing it. But I never thought about posture. I was told you could only fix it with surgery but I felt that wasn’t entirely true. I also have a umbilical hernia. It’s not big but I would like my regular belly button back… Any tips on that?

Hello Dr. Duvall, Thank you so much for this Video. It helped me notice my posture problems post preganacy and a c section. I can fit my whole fist inbetween there.. You give me hope. Thank you.:) how should the weight distribution feel on the feet? When I correct my posture ( hip tilt and ribs over pelvis) my heels feel more pressure than the front flat part of the feet. Also how should one's posture be while sitting down to have the rib cage over the pelvis? What excercies could help additionally to close the gap?

You mentioned that the motion of pulling the belly button in was really bad for posture. What's your opinion on stomach vacuuming or uddiyana bandha (stomach locks)?

Thank You! Learned so much from this video. Never really got a real answer to what I had. I do believe this can be heriditary. My father also had this and he was ideal weight and a very active and fit person. I am 5' tall and my first baby was almost 10 lbs. , Then I had Irish twins, 8 lbs and 9 lbs. The last birth was a c- section. I have had this for years not realizing it and have lost and gained weight and that cycle happened several times. So I am certain now this made it worse and not knowing I probably did exercises that caused more damage. I wish I had a clue. I am going to invest in someone like yourself to help me repair my body. I I was an active kid & teen who played alot of sports. Now middle aged. So it's getting harder but I am determined to find the person who can help me, who knows what they are doing. Thank you so much for your knowledge and helping others!

Very very informative thank u

I really appreciate your passion and the information you shared. I don't think I got a good idea of the exercises you suggested for people suffering from Diastasis Recti

Fix breathing????? Why don t DOCTORS TEACH FEMALES HOW TO BALANCE OF BODY?????

she actually helped a lot on healing my diastasis when she talked about the weight of body might go to your toes instead of the whole feet (see last slide) because of the weak core your posture have to shift even little.- one tip always IMAGINE that you are walking/ standing on your heals and relax your shoulders. that way it will help heal on it's own. try this one day you will see big difference on the next day. Edit (you have to do the during the whole day) literately it feels like you are using your core as you supposed to be.

I have two children and my youngest is 9 years old, I'm now learning about DR and what it is. It's been frustrating having a high tummy and not being able to reduce it, it messes with your self esteem.

Have you thought about starting a small PT boot camp, I think you’re bio-mechanic concept is more than solid. And I agree that a lot of this probably varies with individual anatomy. -On a side note, I’ve found that mewing bring a natural contraction to the abs and pulls your head up as if from a string.

Omg 4 babies later and I just realized this was a thing. I did the self check and it was almost scary! I have a completely open diastasis and especially near my belly button it's sooo huge!

Hi thank you for your video, very helpful, I'm two months postpartum and I want to star riding my stationary bike will that Help or make it worse?

Nice informative video. Can men get this? As in, can there be a correlation with lifting weights?

I think I have the one in the first slide

Above my belly button I've a three finger gap after 7 years of my first pregnancy. One doctor told me it was stored fat but I weighed only 97 lbs after giving birth. My new doctor allowed me to know this is the actual problem of what was going on. Made me better to know what was going on. I'm now pregnant with my second child at 6 months. My gap has pushed forward and looks like an extra tiny belly lol

Great video :) what is your opinion on the Mutusystem? I started it 1.5 weeks ago to heal my 3 finger gap post 3 babies...I am 10 weeks PP. After baby #1 I didn’t know about diastasis until I did all the wrong things for months and then got pregnant with #2, so I was a lot more careful with the second and with this one, but I hope I can heal it without surgery...too bad I can’t fix the lose skin haha

Dr. Duvall - it feels like it makes sense that to help DR to heal, that wearing something like an abdomen splint/band to help the sides of the open area to have less work bringing them together to enable the heal. And what if we don't know how long we've had the DR condition? Does greater time with condition decrease ability to heal or increase time to do so? Thank you.

This information is mind blowing for me. For 15 years after the birtrh of my 2nd daughter, I thought my body was ruined and looking like I was about to give birth to an alien every time I used my abdominals to get up and when I excercised. This is something I intend to continue to work on to correct. And now I am wondering if all of this is also why I ended up with a inquinal hernia, back pain on occasion. I saw a general surgeon whom said that the hernia will heal and correct itself with the loss of weight. Did that but still had that bulge above my navel but not near where the hernia was and the pain was gone so I figured I was just set with that abnormality. But I come across an actress over the weekend and she discussed this issue and I'm sitting her dumb founded seriously. I really heard this years before from a fitness expert she also had this after twins also with an hernia but I didn't put it together until recently that Diastasis Recti was my alien!!! I definitely have work to do.. Thank you so much for such detail in explaining and also about the posture as well as exercises. I am still going through alot of information and while sitting here at work during this pandemic madness. I've gone back to the being mindful of my posture from how I sit to how I stand etc. And will follow up with my doctor/gyn this month definitely going to see if I can get some p/t ordered.

​ Core Exercise Solutions / Dr. Duvall: QUESTION: I see here that you are saying body posture seems to play a major role in this condition, and of particular note the leaning forward over the hips and walking with locked knees. How much would a person with knee problems using a walker with minimal weight bearing be vulnerable to this condition due to the walker posture?

Can I book an appointment with you over zoom?

Thanks for that doctor, mine is open directly on my belly button,.what exercise can I do to reduce belly fat fast , please reply.

Doctor Duvall, Thanks for this info but you need to target in the men's section as well. With obesity on the rise in the US there's a lot of men with this separation issue that don't have any idea how to fix it or they are using plank style exercises making the issue worse.

Dr Sarah, thank you for this informative video. I'm embarrassed to say I don't know if I have diastis recti or just weight gain. My son is now 8 years old, I didn't take care of myself since he was born. I used to be in great shape and ideal weight, until he came along! But I want me back, so I'm doing some corrective diastis recti exercises. Can I ask you if I can send you a picture of my belly and you tell me ...I know it sounds weird but I really don't know but I want to work on it and get me back . I'm 20pounds away from my pre pregnancy weight, please help!

Pelvic floor weakness. Could FALLS ON ICY Sidewalks. Roads. Or sitting incorrect.? ?? Help.

I know this video is 4 yrs old but I think this may be my issue. I am 15 years post partum. I remember actually feeling the separation around my belly button then a hernia right after, appeared in my belly button. I also had a c section. I still have the hernia. I gained weight and am getting back into exercising and this is my biggest obstacle.

Hi, I’m 6 months pp and at first I could fit 2 fingers in and now after about a month of doing DR healing exercises I’m down to 1 finger width and less than one knuckle deep. The tension also doesn’t feel squishy anymore. Does this mean I’m healed and can carry on doing normal ab workouts again? Thanks

Great video! Few questions. How long would you recommend to do the exercises for, is longer the better ? Will it heal quicker with more exercise? Another thing , once I close the gap can do the 'unsafe exercises' or it's more likely that I will get diastasis again because I had it before? Thank you!

I'm having trouble feeling if there is a gap due to my belly lopping over where they cut me for my C section 19 yrs ago, when I was 45. Do you have any tips for me? A massage therapist suggested I may have diastasis, and one side droops lower than the other. Or is that a different issue?

Great video!! I have a 10 finger gap which is huge😭 do you think exercise can help or need surgery. And what types of exercise can I do? I was told by my physiotherapist that the gap is to big and the only option I have is surgery.

4 years after my baby always exercises and eat healthy but I never understand why I can't get a flat stomach 😫😫I hope it's not too late

Hi, Please if you can also upload some post pregnancy exercises as well? I have seen women who do planks after pregnancy but after watching this video I am scared to do planks. Thanks

how can you tell if you have an umbilical hernia when you have diastasis recti? Is it possible to have both and does a hernia require surgery or could it possibly heal with proper physical training also?

This is a great video but I am still not understanding how to properly align my body. 😭

This is a great informative video about something what most people even not aware of. For me, when i pull together my abdomen with my hands from both sides, right from below my breasts and all the way down to my uterus i get my abs distributed vertically and like I have two vertical abdomen. I have been overweight since I was 8 years then i crash diet at the age of 16. I lost 30 kg in 2 months but my skin got lose and the 2 vertical abdomens are all i have now. I have a 4 years kid now. Any suggestions? I dont need a surgery. Please help. Thank you

Do you have a video about back body diaphragm expansion?

Does this cause a “B Belly” also? I’ve had one since I was a child, so before being overweight or having kids... I feel like the B Belly made it hard to check, as I could only feel where the dip is...

Thanx for this video. I have one question: I used to have all my life a little visible "ball" just 3 - 4 cm above my belly button. A year post partum I found out that is a ernia between my rectus. Does it means I had DR all my life? Now I have 2 and a half finger gap above belly button, but before my twins I never checked, so who knows..

How about hula hoop exercises? Are they Diastasis Recti friendly? I am using hula hoop to reduce belly fat and I am doing fine... I also have two fingers gap.

Is there any sort of link between DR and multiple hernia? I know someone asked but I still wasn’t sure by the answer. I got a hernia while pregnant right inside my navel and it didn’t heal so I had it repaired. Shortly after that I got another hernia directly above the previous one. I have 3 fingers above my belly button and 4+ at it and all down underneath. It’s pretty squishy and can hurt if I press too hard into the midline. Is it possible that I will continue to get hernias above or below the ones that have been fixed? I don’t want to keep needing hernia operations until the whole length is patched.

Any suggestions as where we can find someone that can help with diastasis? My OBGYN saw my big bulge in my stomach and she freaked out and didn't know what it was. This was 2 years ago and I only recently found out about Diastasis. But I have no idea where I can find help in my area.

Help. Incontinence weakness. Urine leakage is embarrassing. Some people said it is Very common for women. Wearing pads & "Depends" is not fixable????? Exercise can help? Please?

So even if we master the awareness of keeping our TA engaged, making the DR appear less visible, is the separation/ability of the muscles under to dome outward upon exertion, a permanent issue?

I have a 3 finger DR that's not very deep. I'm 7 weeks postpartum with my 3rd, and the first was c-section, so it's pretty expected. However I been having troubles identifying what exercises are safe and what are not. It seems that almost everything on all fours is a bad idea, such as donkey kicks and fire hydrants, does that mean things in the vent over position are also damaging? Since the pressure is the problem what about if I modified them to laying flat on my belly but not lifting my shoulders? Or wearing a belly belt during exercise? The part where you mentioned rows and squats scared me, as they are some of the few I thought were ok. I dont get any "coning" when i do them, does that mean they are safe??

I have the third diastasis! My upper abdomen bulges out so much more than my bottom 😩

My DR is almost 15 years old. I was told after birth of my oldest son I needed surgery. So 10 years later I get pregnant again. He's now 4 years old. Is it too late to repair DR I've never really done any exercise to fix it? If I did they were all the wrong ones you listed.

I had my son 7 year ago and it is now that I see videos about this, I been doing all wrong thinking I just needed exercise. It is to late? Do I have to stop all does exercise ?

I can’t find my gap...can you do this again. How do I locate it correctly.

Hello,, I'm a 59 yr old male with diastasis, how do you feel about wearing a abdominal support band, to help keep the separation closer?

I can't feel anything as I have a layer of fat covering my stomach. How do I feel through the fat?

Coul you please tell me can diastasis i got afther pregnancy be a cause for constant constipation i have for a year now?

25 years after 2 c-sections I got DR! I’m so frustrated! I cry every single day because I look fat. My clothes won’t fit anymore. People tell me I’m so fat. I have a bulge. I’m so depressed.

I'm a man with Diastasis Recti. I got it after time off weightlifting and getting back to it. Are there differences for men to heal?

Is that the reason why some cultures are wrapping up their stomachs after birth. What are your thoughts about that? Would you recommend it?

How do I choose a physical therapist ?

So it's not an alien, thank God! :)

Husband had major surgery where they cut him open right down the middle from his breast bone to pelvic bone! Major surgery for cancer! His incision ended up getting infected and he was with a wound vacuum for months until it all closed up! His middle there looks very compromised due to all that trauma. Skin is fully defined where the incision took place! Just wondering if he’s out of hope to build that core again, being 9 yrs later!!

Hi im just had c section 2 months and 1 week ago... and I can feel I have 3 finger gap when can I start exercise to fix this? Thank u