diastasis recti

Diastasis recti is a separation between the left and right side of the rectus abdominis muscle, which covers the front surface of the belly area. It is also called abdominal separation.

This is not a picture of my belly, I'm not that brave. I found this pic on the internet but it is pretty much what mine looks like.

I've had 4 babies, 2 of them being twins weighing a total of 14.5 pounds. My last baby was 10 pounds. I have been stretched to the max!!!

I didn't know I had abdominal separation until a couple years ago. My friend saw me pushing on my belly wincing in pain and asked what was wrong. I didn't know what it was but I explained that when I bend over or sneeze my ab muscles pinch "something" then whatever was pinched would spasm. She said she thought she had read something about it once but couldn't remember the name. The next day I looked up "ab muscle separation" and found diastasis recti. I was frustrated when I found out that all those years of doing crunches to try and flatten my belly was making the gap worse. Drat!!

If you have this, or think you might, you can look up more info about it on the internet. I'm not a doctor nor do I play one on TV. I did self diagnose and I'm trying a treatment to see if I can close that gap.

Here are some links for you to check out.

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001602.htm

http://www.raisingarrows.net/diastasis-recti-from-a-moms-perspective/

This is what I bought to help. I should get it in a few days. I'm not dedicating my blog to this but I'll update to say if it's working or not.

http://www.diastasisrehab.com/diastore/product_info.php?cPath=1_7&products_id=36&osCsid=b5gupdp06oe79oimpgqca0t492

(I'm not being paid by this company to use their product or to review it, I only want to heal the "great divide")