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You had that baby then you rather got a little extra skin on your stomach, so you need to get the stomach muscles strong as they were or better so your belly can just shrink back to its pre-pregnancy size, this is not as hard as you might think.

Let me tell you about a research shows that starting an ordinary exercise plan directly after giving birth (postpartum) is not only good for your stomach fat or overall health, but it will help you reduce the possibility of postpartum depression.

The first thing you need to do is getting your physician’s approval for exercising after pregnancy (POSTPARTUM ).

Therefore, after your doctor says it’s okay to do the postpartum exercise, This will be our first exercise to check for POSTPARTUM Abdominal Muscle Separation. 

So, Diastasis Recti (Abdominal separation)? what is that?

I was surprised by hearing that it’s around a 60% chance that you are going to have some form of Diastasis recti throughout the pregnancy period or postpartum. [1]

symptom of DIASTASIS RECTI POSTPARTUM

First, you have to stop any kind of core exercises or stomach exercises if you already start anyone, because they will affect your abs separation after pregnancy (postpartum).

Then, using your hands, lie down on left or right and roll over on your back “that will help with the safety of your stomach muscles”. So, to check for the diastasis recti, you should lie on your back as we told before with your knees bent and feet flat on the floor, shoulder-width apart and put your left hand’s pinkie of two fingers right above your belly button with your palm facing toward you and your right hand on your upper thigh.

 Moreover, you are going to breathe in and then exhale down and lift your head up with shoulders and take your right hand toward your knees. Then with your left hand feel if there is any separation in your stomach muscles if the separation is wider enough for three fingers that’s mean you have a Diastasis Recti.

The Stomach Pelvic Tilt is one of Diastasis Recti exercises that will not put excess strain post-pregnancy (POSTPARTUM ) stomach muscles, to do this exercise:

- Lie on your back the same as we mentioned before.

- Then tighten your stomach muscle.

- Press the lower back to the floor with gently presses to create a “Stomach Pelvic Tilt”.

- Hold for 10 sec, and then gently relax.

- Each day increase gradually the number of tilts you do, with your comfort level.

Leg slides are easy and great postpartum exercises that will help your body to regain its strength to heal after pregnancy (POSTPARTUM ) and birth.

- Laying on your back with your knees to the ceiling and your feet on the ground.

- Start with that squeeze your inhale and exhale then squeeze everything together.

- Then from there, you're going to take your feet and slide your heels along the floor.

- Back to your position and repeat 5 to 7 times.

This one is a Yoga pose that will strengthen your stomach muscles for sure:

- Exhale.

- Stand straight and your hip-width with feet apart.

- Slowly bend your torso forward to the hips, and touch your toes with your fingers.

- Hold for 10-15 sec and back to the start.

- Repeat for 10 times.

According to most specialists, There are some POSTPARTUM  exercises they don't recommend to do if you have diastasis recti, like stomach crunches who usually are the best exercises for reducing belly fat. Because crunches put the pressure on these postpartum muscles could weaken the stomach muscles, it means you will be far from the goal you hoped for.

DISCLAIMER

We are not doctors nor physiotherapists so all the POSTPARTUM exercises we showed you, are exercises we've done on our own research, either by watching other professional videos, other physiotherapist videos and reading different articles about this subject. So definitely, if you have a larger gap than we do or experiencing any pain in your diastasis recti we definitely recommend you to seek doctor's help, don't take our word for it. These are just things that we have done on our own and that helped many followers so maybe they will not help you or maybe they will, so yes, definitely a disclaimer we are NOT experts.