The Missing Link in Women’s Health — and How It’s Damaging Body Image

It’s not just cosmetic

To be a woman in this world is sometimes challenging. As if gender inequity in jobs and homes weren’t enough of an uphill battle, it is also pervasive in healthcare in the drugs that are tested and the studies that are done. Women are to expect a certain amount of side effects and inconvenience to prevent pregnancy or to dispense with it — which is nothing to say of the challenges inherent of going through it. And post-partum care? Well, for many of us, it’s non-existent.

Now that I know there’s a name to the problem I’m experiencing, I wonder if the doctors really could have not known — or just simply didn’t care. All I know is that my post-natal checks mostly involved asking how I was healing and looking at my babies. Very little time was spent talking about my recovery — or checking to see if I had truly healed from the trauma of pregnancy and childbirth.

The first time I heard the words Diastasis Recti was from a friend of mine. Healthline defines it as the partial or complete separation of the rectus abdominis, or “six-pack” muscles, which meet at the midline of your stomach. When she explained what it was, I knew already that I had it. Somewhere in my second trimester, my abs split so severely that I felt a painful rending in my body that caused me to cry out — and then just to cry.

Just to confirm, I did the self-test. While it may seem like this condition is merely cosmetic, a bulging at our bellies that leaves us feeling uncomfortable about how we look, but the truth is that it impacts overall health. It can lead to back pain, bloating, hernias, and pelvic floor dysfunction. It’s not a cosmetic concern alone — although it certainly is a consideration.

I am now nearly eight years post-partum and not one healthcare professional has mentioned it or talked to me about how the hell I’m supposed to recover from something that has so severely impacted my body — and my body image. But many healthcare professionals have suggested ways I might lose weight or drawn attention to the BMI chart despite my high activity level.

My post-partum visits were brief and routine, and apparently the routine doesn’t involve checking for the possibility of Diastasis Recti — which sometimes requires surgery to repair depending on the severity and if herniation resulted. As a sidebar, this procedure is usually considered cosmetic, despite the health impact, and is not covered under most insurance plans.

In social situations, I had people dismiss my concerns by suggesting I do more crunches or other abdominal workouts. Later, I discovered that these exercises actually further harm the abdomen when it’s separated and can prevent healing. Everything I was doing to heal my body was actually making it much worse.

My healing had to take an alternative route. I was fortunate to be referred by my therapist to a Thai masseuse who worked in her practice. My massage therapist was trained by Katy Bowman who authored a book on healing Diastasis Recti. I was able to take private lessons to learn how to heal my abdomen from the trauma of pregnancy and childbirth. I then took that information into a yoga teacher training I was doing and was able to modify poses with my core in mind. Within a few short weeks, my core went from being at least four inches separated to being between one and two.

While I’m grateful that I found help for this issue, the referral should have been made during my post-partum care years ago. Too many women are walking around with ab separation that could be healed if they only knew it existed. Healing isn’t meant to simply conform to a societal standard of beauty. Instead, it’s meant to support core and pelvic floor health.

What To Do If You Think You Have Diastasis Recti

• Take the self-test.
• Reach out to a physical therapist trained who is informed about Diastasis Recti and post-partum health.
• Advocate for your own healthcare.
• Don’t normalize core or pelvic floor issues like the “mummy tummy” or adult incontinence.
• Skip crunches or any other exercise that puts strain on the core.
• Purchase the book on healing Diastasis Recti (or borrow it from your local library) and do the exercises daily.
• Remember that you are beautiful and worthy of love just as you are.
• Practice self-love throughout the healing journey.
• Follow social media accounts that bring awareness and attention to diastasis recti and how to heal it.
• See a therapist to help with body image issues that may accompany this health issue.

Diastasis recti is the missing link in women’s health, and it’s not going anywhere. Women will have to take their health into their own hands as long as the medical community continues dropping the ball on aftercare, dismissing the concerns of women as purely cosmetic when it does a great deal more than actively harming our body image — although the mental health aspect shouldn’t be ignored. While men can also experience diastasis recti, it is nowhere near as prevalent as in women. Until healthcare considers the needs of women equal to the needs of their male counterparts, this problem is likely to continue.