Diastasis Recti Exercise

Hello! Thanks for adding me. I came into contact with the Saving the Whole Woman book through a quest for information on healing my diastasis recti. I am very glad for the preventative knowledge I gained about prolapse, and I don't want to be doing any exercises that would put me at risk for it.

The other day I came across a description of an exercise that apparently helped 100% of the women in the trial study to heal their diastasis recti. My question is whether it agrees with Whole Woman principles and is safe to do. It sounded similar to the fire breathing I thought.

He is a link to the article and a description of the exercise copied from it:

"The exercise is a very small, very intense movement that's almost imperceptible," Keller says. "OK. We're going to do another set."

Sitting on the floor cross-legged, with our hands on our bellies, we all take a big breath. "Let the belly fully expand," Keller says.

And then as we exhale, we suck in our belly muscles — as far back as they'll go, toward the spine. "Now we're going to stay here near the spine. Hold this position," she says.

Then we take tiny breaths. With each exhale, we push our stomachs back further and further.

"Tight, tighter," Keller chants, rhythmically.

You can do the exercise in several different positions, Keller says: sitting crossed-legged, sitting on your knees, standing with knees slightly bent, on all fours or laying on your side in the fetal position.

The key is to be sure your back is flat, and that you do the exercise 10 minutes each day, changing positions every two minutes or so. For the rest of the time, your belly is pulled all the way back into the spine.

"The fingertips on the bellybutton are really important for this reason," she says. "So you know that you're squeezing tight, tighter with the belly, and you're never bulging the bellybutton forward."