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DR or better known as  Diastasis Recti is quite common amongst Pregnant/Postpartum Mums and without the knowledge or bing assessed many don’t even know they have it. Some woman wonder why years after childbirth they still have the pouch even though they have done what they can through eating right and exercise.

Taryn Watson from FITRIGHT wrote a great blog last year on it. Recently we also attended an information session from @fit_triplet_mum

Here is some of Taryn‘s post:

Abdominal Muscle Separation During and After Pregnancy 

It will never cease to amaze that a little human being can grow to full development for nine months in a woman’s belly. One of the inevitable consequences of this, however, is that there has to be a lot of shifting and stretching of the surrounding organs and tissues to allow this to happen!  

The “six pack” muscle, or Rectus Abdominis muscle, is actually two muscle bellies with a line of connective tissue down the middle. From about 18 weeks of pregnancy, when the baby starts taking up more space above the pelvis, the midline tissue has to start stretching, and the six pack muscles move apart from each other.  

This separation is called ‘Diastasis Recti’, or DR, and is helped by the fact that pregnant women have a hormone in their body called Relaxin, which allows connective tissue to be stretchier.  

MYTH TO BUST – The abdominal muscles do not ‘tear’ or ‘split’, but the connective tissue between them does need to stretch and this is a very normal consequence of pregnancy.  

In pregnancy, after the muscles have begun to stretch, it is highly recommended to minimize use of the six pack muscle. This means after approximately 16-20 weeks of pregnancy, avoid anything that causes ‘doming’ or triangling of the abdominal wall during exercise or daily activities. This may include: 

• Crunches 
• Planks 
• Russian Twists 
• Pull ups/chin ups/Muscle ups  
• Getting up from the bed/bath/couch 

Daily movements can usually be modified to avoid doming, by rolling completely onto your side to get up from a reclined position.  

Investing in a pair of Pregnancy leggings is paramount to your comfort as you work on nurturing the growing bundle of joy inside. As the months go past you will slowly get more uncomfortable through your abdominal and lower back region. You need a pair of maternity leggings to support you for the whole 9 months.

A pregnant body is forever changing, so your usual gear isn’t going to go the distance. When your top no longer fits properly, you’re not really likely to head out for a nice walk with your belly exposed, right? The pregnancy leggings that we have designed offer a high-support waistband that offers panelling that helps spread the weight of your baby bump evenly over your lower body, which will help improve your posture, take pressure off the lower back and encourage more comfortable exercise. The waistband is designed to sit underneath the growing bump so that the seam rests underneath not providing constriction or irritation. 

Some woman experience the phenomenon of irritable uterus (also called “uterine irritability”) in pregnancy and is described as “non-labor inducing contractions that occur frequently, sometimes painfully, sometimes painlessly, without any real consistency or pattern.” Having a tight regular legging band that cuts through the abdomen area can cause undue pressure in this area. The leggings that we have designed allow growth and expansion due to a high quality fabric and no irritating seams through the pregnant bump region. The quality of fabric does mean that these leggings offer all of the support in the right areas and they do not stretch out of shape.

So there is no question as to why to buy a pair of maternity leggings comparative to wearing your normal high waisted regular ones…

‘Motherhood is a period which one enters when she becomes a mother. A mother is a person who brings up a child/her offspring with care and affection.’

So why is it that so many woman struggle with the transition to motherhood. One minute they are leading the charge in a corporate office. Their lives revolves around scheduled meetings, intellectually conversations, email creation, dressing professionally, using their talents etc- the next they are dealing with vomit stained tracksuit pants because they were on the floor and the tiredness resulted in lack of energy to get chores done (and they were comfy), drinking cold coffee because their attention was taken off elsewhere, their schedule is now defined by someone else and this is unpredictable, their boobs are leaking milk at the most random times, the TV/social media becomes their best friend because it is just too hard to leave the house, human excretions become the norm and you become so oblivious to the fact you are cleaning up someone else's poo (where as before the office cubicles freaked you out due to lack of hygiene) a shopping trip is a half a day ordeal where as before the lunch time shopping trip was therapy and full of excitement as you bought items to cloth yourself (now every spare cent gets spent on the kids outfits and you are still wearing your hyper colour tshirt from the 80’s).

It is real and the transition to motherhood is tough. You spend 9 months of the pregnancy getting prepared for the pending arrival but do you really know what is about to hit you until the moment actually comes?

The lose of identity is one of the biggest factors in this transition to motherhood. Once upon a time they were defined by their career or being a scientist, teacher, nurse etc and now they are just a ‘mother’. This transition can be such a shift that it negatively effects the newborn experience. There is nothing wrong with feeling like that as the transition and shift is so great. There are huge physiological and psychosocial changes as she transitions into the motherhood role. She also has to reestablish relationships and works to meet the physical and emotional needs of her infant plus, herself and other family members. Woman are also vulnerable to health problems as well as the hormonal shift in the postpartum period.

Here are our top 10 tips to coping with this transition into your new journey as a mother:

1. Identify positive coping strategies
2. Establish a good social network- mother group, family or like minded Mums in a similar situation
3. Set up realistic expectations- it is not the achievable to have a spotless house and care for a newborn, plus have a meal on the table every night etc etc. Realise what is achieveable- set the bar low and then the rest is a bonus.
4. Have a good support crew that understands the demands of being a mum and can anticipate your needs and help to step in when needed.
5. Avoid isolation- it becomes easy to spend extended periods of time alone with the baby inside the four walls of your house, it becomes easy to lose perspective and confidence. With more times that passes the social interactions become harder and you lose the ability to socialise. 
6. Have a sense of self beyond your children- this will allow you to feel half normal! By ostracising yourself and ceasing the activities you once enjoyed your well-being will suffer- even though you may think it is selfish to do something for you it is oh so important.
7. Trust your gut- you are an expert of your own child. Develop confidence in your abilities. You are the one who spends 24/7 with the baby and know their cries/routines/habits etc. 
8. Accept that life is different now- pace of life, perception from others , ability to get stuff done etc will all turn on its head. Be okay with it and know it is just a phase. 
9. Establish a routine of some description. Human beings need some sort of routine- even those that say they don't have a routine actually do. At bedtime we have a routine, getting out of bed in the morning we have a routine etc so by setting up a loose schedule of times allows structure to be placed around the day. Changing things up from time to time also helps to break up monotony. 
10. Become an optimist- remember you can not control everything especially the needs of a baby so just because you want to sleep at 9:30 doesn't mean they want to- or that visit to Aunty GeeGee well it doesn't always go the way you may want it too so accept, laugh it off and know that tomorrow is a new day. (And you can not control everything!)

The transition is tough so be kind and gracious and reach out if you are struggling x