Postpartum Fitness and Diastasis Recti: What Minneapolis Moms Need to Know

If your core has not felt right since you had your baby, you are not imagining things. The weakness, the strange pressure, the feeling that your middle is somehow less connected than it used to be, these are real and they have a name. It’s an abdominal separation called diastasis recti and it’s a common occurrence during pregnancy. Most women who carry a baby to term don’t even know they have it. Even worse is that a significant number of women are doing exercises that are actively making the diastasis recti worse. 

In this post, we’ll break down what diastasis recti actually is, how to tell if you have it, what to avoid, and what recovery actually looks like when it is approached correctly. 

What Is Diastasis Recti?

Your rectus abdominis muscles, the ones that run vertically along the front of your abdomen, are connected along the midline by a band of connective tissue called the linea alba. During pregnancy, as your uterus expands to accommodate a growing baby, this tissue stretches. In many cases it stretches significantly, causing the two sides of the rectus abdominis to separate.

This separation is called diastasis recti. It is not a tear or an injury in the traditional sense. It is a stretching and thinning of the connective tissue that holds your core together. After delivery, the uterus contracts and the separation may partially close on its own, but it does not always close fully, and in many cases it does not close to a functional degree without intentional rehabilitation.

The degree of separation varies. A small gap of one to two finger widths is common and often resolves with appropriate exercise. A larger separation, or one where the tissue has lost significant tension, requires a more careful and structured approach. The severity of the separation is not always correlated with how dramatic the symptoms feel, which is part of why so many women walk around with undiagnosed diastasis recti for months or even years postpartum.

How to Tell if You Have It

There is a self-assessment you can do at home. Following up with a pelvic floor physiotherapist for a proper evaluation is recommended if you have any concerns.

Lie on your back with your knees bent and your feet flat on the floor. Place your fingertips horizontally across your midline, just below your belly button. Slowly lift your head and shoulders as if beginning a crunch. Feel for a gap or a soft, spongy area along the midline where your fingers sink in rather than meeting firm muscle tissue.

A gap of more than two finger widths, or any gap where the tissue feels soft and without tension, is worth addressing. But I want to be clear: the presence of diastasis recti is not a sign that something went wrong with your pregnancy or delivery. It is an extremely common consequence of carrying a baby, and it is addressable.

Other signs that may indicate diastasis recti include a visible dome or ridge along your midline when you sit up or do any kind of abdominal exertion, persistent lower back pain, hip pain, pelvic floor dysfunction, and a feeling of weakness or instability in your core that does not improve with general exercise. If any of these resonate, it is worth getting assessed.

What Makes It Worse

This is the part of the conversation that most postpartum fitness content skips entirely, and it is the part that causes the most damage.

The exercises that most women reach for when they want to rebuild their core after having a baby are exactly the exercises most likely to worsen diastasis recti. Crunches, sit-ups, and leg raises create what is called an intra-abdominal pressure spike, loading the linea alba in a way that can increase the separation or prevent it from healing. Traditional planks, double leg lowers, and other high-load core exercises have the same problem if the diastasis has not been adequately addressed first.

High-impact exercise, including running, jumping, and most group fitness formats, also creates loading conditions that are not appropriate in the early stages of diastasis recti recovery. The pelvic floor and the deep core need to be rehabilitated before they are asked to absorb that kind of impact.

I am not telling you this to take things away from you. I am telling you this because doing the wrong things at the wrong time is one of the primary reasons postpartum core recovery stalls, and most women who experience that stall blame themselves rather than their program.

What Actually Helps

Diastasis recti recovery is a progression, and the starting point is always the same regardless of how far along you are: breath.

Diaphragmatic breathing and deep core activation

The deep core system includes the diaphragm, the pelvic floor, the transverse abdominis, and the multifidus. These four structures work together to create stability in the trunk, and the diaphragm is the entry point for retraining the whole system. Learning to breathe deeply into the belly, and to coordinate the exhale with a gentle activation of the deep core, is the foundation of diastasis recti rehabilitation.

This is not glamorous work. It does not look like a workout. But it is the step that everything else depends on, and skipping it is the reason so many women spend months doing postpartum exercise that does not translate into functional improvement.

Progressive core loading

Once the breath and deep core connection is established, the work becomes about gradually reintroducing load in ways that challenge the core without spiking intra-abdominal pressure. This typically looks like dead bugs, heel slides, bird dogs, glute bridges, and eventually more dynamic movements as the tissue gains strength and tension.

The progression needs to be individualized. How quickly someone moves through it depends on the severity of the original separation, how well the tissue is responding, and whether pelvic floor dysfunction is also present. A program that works well for someone with a mild, high-tension diastasis may be completely inappropriate for someone with a more significant separation or co-occurring prolapse.

Addressing scar tissue for C-section recoveries

For women who delivered via C-section, there is an additional layer of tissue healing that affects core function. The scar tissue from the incision can restrict movement and alter how the deep core activates. Scar mobilization, typically introduced around six to eight weeks postpartum once the incision has healed, is an important part of C-section recovery that is often left out of postpartum fitness conversations entirely.

Why a Personalized Plan Makes a Difference

I want to be honest about why I believe in personalized postpartum fitness planning as opposed to general programs, because the difference is real and it matters.

A generic postpartum program cannot assess your diastasis. It cannot account for whether you delivered vaginally or via C-section, whether you have a mild or significant separation, whether your pelvic floor is overactive or underactive, or where you are in your recovery timeline. It gives you the same exercises it gives everyone else and hopes for the best.

A personalized plan starts with a core and movement assessment. It accounts for how you delivered, what your current function looks like, what your goals are, and what your life actually looks like. It progresses you based on how you are responding, not on a generic timeline. And it protects you from doing the things that could set your recovery back while giving you a clear path forward.

The women I work with are not passive participants in their own recovery. They are athletes in the most literal sense, rebuilding a system that was significantly altered by pregnancy and birth. They deserve a plan that treats them that way.

When to See a Pelvic Floor Physiotherapist

A pelvic floor physiotherapist is a licensed physical therapist with specialized training in the pelvic floor and abdominal wall. I strongly recommend seeing one postpartum, ideally around six to eight weeks after delivery, as part of your standard postpartum care. In many countries this is standard practice. In the United States it is not, which means most women are navigating postpartum recovery without one of the most useful resources available to them.

If you are experiencing any of the following, a pelvic floor physiotherapist referral is especially important: leaking urine with exertion or urgency, pelvic heaviness or pressure, pain with intercourse, significant lower back or hip pain, or a diastasis recti gap larger than two to three finger widths. These are not things to wait on or push through.

Getting Started With Postpartum Fitness in Minneapolis

If you are postpartum and you are ready to start rebuilding, the most important thing I can tell you is this: starting slow is not the same as starting wrong. The temptation to do more, to get back to where you were, to feel like yourself again, is real and I understand it. But the foundation you build in the first three to six months determines what is possible for the rest of your life. It is worth building it correctly.

Every postpartum fitness plan I build starts with an assessment of where you actually are. Not where you think you should be. Not where someone else is six weeks out from a birth that was completely different from yours. Where you are, with the body you have, recovering from the birth you had.

If you are in Minneapolis and you are ready to work with someone who takes postpartum fitness seriously and understands diastasis recti specifically, reach out. The link is in the bio and I am happy to answer questions before you commit to anything.