Hi, this is Dr. Amanda again from Tiger Family Chiropractic. Again, I wanted to share some information with you today that I hope will be helpful for improving your life. And as always I want to share that this is not to be any form of diagnosis or treatment or to replace a treatment that you sought out just some information that hopes to help make your life better.
And so one thing that we keep in mind is that many mamas when they get pregnant they actually end up having separation in the abdominal muscles. And we call that a diastasis. If you can picture for me the abs should be together just like this but, over time during pregnancy, it’s going to cause separation to occur for most people. And what’s really interesting is if we don’t fix that it will stay separated and this is important because your abs are part of the core which stabilizes your back and whole body to stay strong.
So, what I wanted to share with you or teach today is just a self-check that you can do at home to see if that diastasis is present. Pregnancy is an example of how it can occur but not the only reason. It can be happening to people who are small of frame, large of frame, someone who’s really physically active, or someone who is very sedentary. So, this is something that is really good to know about your body but not something we check on a regular basis about ourselves but, it’s super simple to find out. So, what you want to do is lay like this. You’re going to end up doing a little sit up or crunch while feel your stomach along the midline. And what you’ll often feel if there is a diastasis present is when you’re pushing down on your stomach as you do a sit up you will feel two muscles pushing together on the sides and relaxing away when you lay back down, the muscles push in and go back out. You can feel a rivet a space in between those muscles you would have a diastasis. I’m going to push on my stomach do a sit up and come back down, a little sit up and come back down. And as you can see I’m moving my hands down a little bit as I do it lower down into my tummy. I usually go about two inches above the belly button and two inches below the belly button to check this. So, if you find that you have a diastasis then there are certainly great exercises available and your chiropractor can talk to about that as well. It’s something that I think that if you can adjust it your core is going to be stronger and will improve the health of your life.
So, as always I want to thank you for spending time with us and take care.