Somewhere in the months after birth, you probably noticed it. A soft rounding at your middle that does not shift. A ridge that appears down your stomach when you sit up from bed. A sense that your core is simply not connected in the way it used to be.

This is diastasis recti, and it is far more common than most women realise. It affects roughly six in ten women at six weeks postpartum, and around a third still have it at a year. It is not a sign you did anything wrong, and, importantly, it is not permanent.

Let me explain what is actually happening, how to check yourself properly, and how to start rebuilding without making it worse.

What diastasis recti actually is

Your abdominal muscles are not a single sheet. The rectus abdominis, the muscles people call the six-pack, runs in two vertical bands down the front of your stomach, joined in the middle by a strip of connective tissue called the linea alba.

During pregnancy, as your uterus expands, that connective tissue stretches and thins to make room. The two muscle bands move apart. This is not an injury or a failure; it is exactly what is meant to happen, and by the end of pregnancy essentially every woman has some degree of separation.

The question is what happens afterwards. For many women the tissue gradually regains its tension and the gap narrows over the following months. For others it does not fully recover on its own, and that is when it becomes something worth addressing.

Here is the part that has genuinely changed in recent years, and it matters: the width of the gap is no longer considered the most important measure. Current thinking focuses far more on the quality of the tissue and how much tension it can generate. A woman with a wider gap and good tension may function perfectly well, while a narrower gap with slack, unsupportive tissue can cause more problems. So please do not fixate on finger widths alone.

How to check yourself

This takes a minute and you can do it at home. It is worth waiting until at least six weeks postpartum, and if you had a caesarean, until you are comfortable pressing on your abdomen.

Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Place the fingers of one hand just above your belly button, pointing down towards your pelvis. Press down gently into your abdomen.

Now lift your head and shoulders very slightly off the floor, as if starting a small crunch, keeping your shoulders relaxed. Feel for the two firm bands of muscle either side of your fingers, and notice the space between them.

Repeat this at your belly button, and again a few inches below it, since separation can differ at each point.

What you are feeling for. Two things, and both matter.

Width. How many finger widths fit in the gap. One to two fingers is generally considered within normal range. Two to three suggests mild separation, three to four moderate, and beyond that more significant.

Depth and tension. Press gently downwards. Does your finger meet resistance fairly quickly, like a trampoline with some spring, or does it sink deeply into a soft, yielding space? Tension that springs back is a genuinely good sign, arguably more meaningful than the width itself.

Also watch for doming. As you lift your head, look at your stomach. If you see a ridge or tent shape pushing up along the midline, that is called doming or coning, and it tells you the pressure inside your abdomen is pushing outward against tissue that cannot yet contain it. Doming during any movement is your signal that the movement is too much for now.

Signs worth noticing

Beyond the physical gap, diastasis recti can show up in ways that are easy to attribute to something else:

A belly that still looks pregnant months on, particularly by the end of the day. A visible ridge when you sit up or lift something. Lower back pain, because your core is not supporting your spine well. Pelvic floor symptoms including leaking, since the core and pelvic floor work as one system. A feeling of weakness or instability when lifting your baby or carrying shopping. And sometimes bloating that seems disproportionate, because the abdominal wall is offering less support.

What to avoid, at least for now

This is not a forever list. It is a not-yet list, and the reasoning is the same throughout: anything that pushes your abdominal wall outward, or that you cannot do without doming, is asking more of the tissue than it can currently give.

Traditional crunches and sit-ups. Full planks, at least initially. Double leg lifts and bicycle crunches. Heavy lifting while holding your breath. Deep twisting movements. High-impact activity like running or jumping until your core can manage the load.

There are also everyday movements worth changing, and these matter more than people expect because you do them dozens of times a day.

Get out of bed by rolling. Roll onto your side first, drop your legs off the edge, and push up with your arms. Sitting straight up from lying is essentially a crunch, and you may do it several times a night with a newborn.

Breathe out on effort. When you lift your baby, stand from a chair or carry the car seat, exhale as you do it rather than holding your breath. Breath-holding spikes the pressure inside your abdomen.

Watch how you carry. Constantly holding a baby on one hip loads one side heavily. Alternating sides, or using a sling that distributes weight, is kinder to a recovering core.

Where to start rebuilding

The goal is not to force the gap closed. It is to restore function and tension through the whole system, and that begins deeper than most people expect.

Start with breathing. This sounds too simple to matter, and it is genuinely where the rebuilding begins. Lie comfortably with one hand on your ribs and one on your belly. Breathe in slowly and let your ribcage expand sideways. Breathe out slowly and feel your abdomen gently draw in of its own accord. Your diaphragm and your deep core work together, and re-establishing that relationship is the foundation everything else sits on.

Then connect the deep core and pelvic floor. On an out-breath, gently draw your pelvic floor up and imagine hugging your baby towards your spine, without gripping or holding your breath. It should feel like a whisper of engagement rather than a hard brace. Release fully on the in-breath. This is the connection that will support everything you build afterwards.

Add gentle movement gradually. Pelvic tilts, heel slides, and small controlled movements while maintaining that deep connection. The rule throughout is simple: if you see doming, or feel pressure pushing outwards, the movement is too advanced for today. Regress it and build up.

Then progress genuinely. This is where a lot of postnatal advice stops, and it should not. Once your deep core is reconnecting, you do need to progressively load it to build real strength. Gentle strength work, carrying, controlled resistance, all rebuild capacity. Staying on breathing exercises forever will not get you back to lifting a toddler and a car seat.

The things that quietly make a difference

Beyond the exercises, several everyday factors affect how well the tissue recovers, and they get very little attention.

Managing your intra-abdominal pressure. This phrase sounds technical but the idea is simple: your abdomen is a pressurised container, and anything that repeatedly spikes that pressure pushes outward on healing tissue. Straining on the toilet is a significant one, so treating constipation properly matters more than it sounds. So does a persistent cough, which is worth getting treated rather than enduring.

Constipation specifically. It is extremely common postpartum, particularly with iron supplements, opioid pain relief after a caesarean, dehydration and reduced movement all stacking up. Fibre, genuine hydration, and asking your GP about a stool softener if needed all reduce the repeated straining that works against your recovery.

Posture, without perfectionism. Standing with your ribs stacked over your pelvis rather than thrusting your ribs forward or tucking your pelvis under lets your deep core work as it should. Hours of feeding hunched over a baby pulls everything forward, so a cushion supporting your arms and a chair that supports your back genuinely helps.

Sleep, as much as is possible. Tissue repair happens during sleep, and this is precisely the period when sleep is most fragmented. You cannot fix this, but it is worth knowing that slow progress during a stretch of terrible nights is physiological rather than a lack of effort.

Eating enough protein. Connective tissue repair requires protein, and postpartum intake is often low simply because eating is difficult with a newborn. Snacks that require no preparation, nuts, yoghurt, cheese, boiled eggs, do more for your recovery than any supplement marketed at postnatal tummies.

On binders and support bands. These are widely sold and often misunderstood. A binder does not strengthen anything or close the gap. It can offer genuine comfort and support in the early weeks, particularly after a caesarean, and some women find it helps them move more confidently. But relying on it long term can mean your own muscles do less work, so it is best used as short-term support rather than a treatment.

Please see a physiotherapist

I want to say this clearly, because it is the single most useful thing in this article.

A women’s health physiotherapist is the gold standard for this, and the improvement women get from proper assessment and a tailored programme is genuinely different from following generic exercises online. They can assess the tissue quality rather than just the gap, check your pelvic floor at the same time since the two are intimately linked, and progress you appropriately.

In the UK you can ask your GP for a referral to a women’s health or pelvic health physiotherapist, and some areas accept self-referral. There are also private specialists if waiting lists are long. If money is tight, even a single assessment appointment to get a personalised starting point is worth more than months of guessing.

And here is the genuinely encouraging part: it is almost never too late. Structured rehabilitation helps even years after birth. If your youngest is five and you are reading this thinking you missed your window, you did not.

When to seek help sooner

Please do speak to your GP or a physiotherapist promptly if you notice: a bulge that is painful or tender rather than just soft, a bulge that appears suddenly, any pain around your belly button that worsens with movement, nausea or vomiting alongside the bulge, or a separation that feels like a distinct hole rather than a widened gap.

These can suggest a hernia, where tissue pushes through the abdominal wall, which needs proper assessment rather than exercises.

Also worth raising: significant lower back pain, leaking urine, or a feeling of heaviness or dragging in your pelvis. None of these are things to simply live with, and all of them respond well to proper pelvic health input.

A word about how this feels

There is a particular kind of grief in looking at a stomach that still looks pregnant months after your baby arrived, especially when everything around you suggests you should have bounced back by now.

I want to say plainly that this is a physical, structural thing, not a reflection of your effort or your discipline. No amount of core work in the early weeks would have prevented it, and doing more, harder, faster will make it worse rather than better.

Your body did something enormous. The tissue that stretched to accommodate an entire person is now being asked to reorganise itself, and that takes time, in the same way any tissue healing does. Rushing it is genuinely counterproductive.

What a realistic timeline looks like. Research following three hundred women found separation present in around sixty per cent at six weeks postpartum, falling to roughly a third by twelve months. So a great deal of natural recovery does happen across the first year, entirely without intervention.

That said, a third of women still had it at a year, which tells you two things. Firstly, if yours has not resolved by six months, you are not unusual and you have not missed a deadline. Secondly, waiting and hoping is not the best strategy if it is affecting how you function, because targeted rehabilitation genuinely changes outcomes where natural recovery has stalled.

Go gently. Start with breathing. Get assessed if you can. And know that most women see meaningful improvement, whether that happens naturally over the first year or with the proper support that makes the difference.

This is all part of the fourth trimester, and if you had a caesarean, c-section recovery covers the healing side too. The first poo after birth is worth reading too, since straining is exactly what a healing core does not need. If you would like someone alongside you as you rebuild, do get in touch, or read more about how I work with women postpartum.

Written by

Brydee Thomas

Holistic health coach and founder of Radiant Bloom, supporting women through trying to conceive, pregnancy and the postpartum months. Evidence-based guidance, no programmes and no generic plans.