My Journey with Diastasis Recti – A Personal and Professional Reflection (part 1)
July is International Diastasis Recti Awareness Month, making it important to share this story now. Even if only a few people stumble across this blog (in 3 parts) and it helps them find a pathway to healing, then the years I’ve spent learning, developing my skillset, creating my OnDemand Library and writing these words will have purpose. That alone makes this story worth telling.
When It Happened
It began during my first pregnancy in 2003–2004. I was a novice Pilates teacher, with limited understanding of true integration and integrity in the body—at least not as we now understand the complex relationship between tension and movement that creates tensegrity. I taught the repertoire, the sequences, the exercises, but not from a place of holistic awareness. I wasn't paying mindful attention to myself while demonstrating movements—some of which were entirely inappropriate for a pregnant body.
Why I Think It Happened
Looking back, I believe several factors contributed to my Diastasis Recti (separation at the front of the abdominal wall). One major issue was a chronic habit of holding in my abdomen, creating an overly "tight" system. The Pilates training I’d initially received taught cueing like “pull in and pull up on the exhale” to “connect to the core and stabilise the movement”. That kind of bracing became habitual, but ultimately it is dysfunctional.
I’ve since worked hard to educate both new and experienced Pilates teachers on how and why we must shift towards cueing for functional support—not appearance. But as a young teacher in an industry where Pilates was synonymous with a “strong core” and a “flat stomach,” I felt a pressure to look the part.
Though I’ve always been naturally slim, I had a lordosis—likely a result of childhood gymnastics—which made my belly protrude slightly. I wasn’t conscious of it until I became a Pilates teacher and there was a significant moment early on in my teaching career, when a senior instructor once prodded my stomach, during the break of a workshop she was teaching, and told me to pull it in. That comment, along with societal expectations, triggered a lasting self-consciousness.
Later, during my first pregnancy, I remember demonstrating the teaser on the reformer—at eight months pregnant! That was likely the moment I injured my abdominal wall, although the conditions for a Diastasis were already there. But I didn’t acknowledge it as an injury for years. It wasn’t just that moment as I said—it was the accumulated tension, dysfunctional cueing and the cultural and professional pressure to hold, brace, and conform.
Often by the end of long teaching days, I’d have an intense belly ache and find relief only when I consciously softened and breathed into my abdomen. I didn’t always realise I was holding so much tension—but I felt the relief when I let go. I believe that the unconscious gripping led to systemic dysfunction: a held abdominal wall, a hypertonic pelvic floor, and shallow, dysfunctional breathing.
My tissues lacked the glide and give needed to expand with pregnancy. And as our design dictates, the give happened at the linea alba—the central line of the abdominal wall. This was the beginning of my Diastasis Recti. It was also the beginning of what became a quest to understand movement more deeply—not as a series of exercises, but as a whole-body, health-centred practice.
Though I now see how much more I could have done to support myself, I’m ultimately thankful. This experience drove me to spend the next 20 years learning, teaching, evolving, and helping others heal.
How It Made Me Feel – As a Woman, In My Body
Initially, I was too caught up in being a new mother to register what had happened to my body. I also experienced pubic symphysis dysfunction during pregnancy and dislocated my coccyx during birth. My structure—long tailbone, narrow space between tail and pubis—may have played a role, but I’m certain the tension I created in my system made me more susceptible to these occurrences.
As I began to move again and return to teaching, I realised something wasn’t right. I looked about four or five months pregnant, despite being slim and occasionally, strangers would even ask if I was pregnant, and if not ask outright they would look at my belly curiously, like my being slim didn’t add up with the strange shape of my belly. I know many other women with Diastasis Recti will relate to how disheartening that can feel. I had what people call a belly pooch, but a diastasis belly is different—it’s an odd shape. And I felt at odds with my body.
Two symmetrical beauty spots that once sat beside my navel now rested near my waist. My tone felt "asleep." I returned to work not wanting to brace, but battling a disconnect in my centre and a sense of postural instability. Thus began my long journey of rehabilitation.
