Split abdominal muscles and 17 weeks pg. What's ahead?

[BaldHedgehog]

Went to see the mw above who confirmed my suspicions re my abdomen. I wasn't well sometimes but thought it was pregnancy related or some kind of indigestion. She offered me a belt to "hold things together" and said that the muscles usually come back together few weeks after the labour, if not I'd be referred to physio.
She also advised seeing GP for abdominal pain that sometimes I'm feeling just under my ribcage.

What's next? I've got boisterous toddler to look after so I just have to pull myself together ( ha,ha). Anybody has any experience? I want to rule out the heartburn first just in case this one is different than the last one, if it doesn't help I'm off to GP. No horror stories please as I'm already scared shitless

Thank you.

If you mean the separation of the tummy muscles, don't panic as it's quite common (diastasis recti) and I had it quite badly with ds (3-4 fingers width afterwards). Exercise post birth (NOT sit ups, as my stupid mw told me, but luckily I ignored her) gradually brought the muscles back to one fingers width apart, before I got pregnant again about 22months later.

Try to avoid using your tummy muscles while pregnant as the muscle memory won't help recovery - so pull yourself up with arms, ask dh to help (!) and definitely no sit ups! Elegant it is not, but it will help prevent more damage.

F* the elegance! Thanks for the advice. How to handle DS when I have to lift him up? I already refuse to pick him on demand but sometimes I have to do it.

I'm a bit puzzled as to why the mw said that my body didn't have time to recover properly ( nice way to say I got pg too quickly). There's 15 months gaps between DS and getting pg again so where do this 6 weeks post birth fit in?

Bump.

I've got this, with a 3 year age gap so don't think its anything to do with how long you've got between pregnancies. Most people's abs recover and rejoin, unfortunately not all do.

I've been told by physio that I need to avoid anything that makes my tummy look "coned" eg the middle sticking out more and to pull in my transverse abdominals when lifting DS, again to try and avoid this. As far as possible I sit down to pick up my DS as that seems to be the easiest way.

I've been given some Pilates exercises by the physio to try and limit the damage I'm going, and she will also see me postnatally to try and resolve it once baby arrives.

The only issue it's caused me has been sharp stabbing pains in the front of my pelvis which I'd thought was SPD but apparently it's due to the muscle separation!

I've had it with each DC. I try really hard not to lift during pregnancy, this gets harder each time the more DC's there are to look after. I try not to lift them off the floor. You are also meant to get out of bed by rolling onto your side rather than sitting straight up, that is a good habit to get into as that puts less strain on the muscles and you'll need to carry on doing that after the birth.

Physio postpartum helps, I also did Pilates after DC1 (it was 1-2-1 so all of the exercises were tailored to getting my muscles back together). Sit ups are a definite no no. On the plus sides, doing these exercises every day gave me really good pelvic floor!

TBH, the very worst thing about it was still looking pregnant for a few months after the birth, I've sort of gotten used to that now and know what clothes to buy to hide it and try and get straight into wearing 'spanx' pants as soon as possible after the birth. After DC's 1 and 3 my tummy got respectably flat enough, fingers crossed for this time.

I have to wear a tummy support during pregnancy too.