You can check this yourself on the floor in about two minutes, and it's worth doing before you start any ab work, because what you find changes what you should do next.
Here's how we do it in clinic, and how you can do it at home.
The check
Lie on your back on a firm surface, knees bent, feet flat. Pull your shirt up. Put two fingers of one hand on your belly just above the navel, pointing down toward your pelvis, fingertips pressing in gently. Breathe out and lift your head and shoulders a couple of inches, the very start of a crunch. Not a sit-up. Just enough that the two long muscles on either side of your midline firm up under your fingers.
Feel for the edges. If your fingers sink into a soft trough between two walls of muscle, that trough is the gap. Count how many fingers fit across it. One, two, three, more. Then repeat the same test at the navel and about two finger-widths below it. The gap is often widest at or just above the navel and narrower low down, but not always.
Now the part most people skip. While your head is still lifted, press down into the gap. Does the tissue feel firm and springy, so your fingers stop? Or do they keep sinking toward your spine with nothing pushing back? That's the depth, and it tells us more than the width does.
Last, lower your head, relax, and just watch your belly while you exhale and lift again. A ridge rising along the midline is called doming. Note whether it happens.
Write down three things: width in fingers at each spot, firm or soft, doming or no doming. Repeat in two weeks. Our core tracker is set up for exactly these notes.
What the findings mean
Nearly every woman has some separation right after birth. The linea alba, the connective tissue down the middle, had to stretch to make room, and it's supposed to. Much of that closes on its own in the first eight weeks or so. A gap of one to two fingers at six weeks that feels firm when you press on it is not something we lose sleep over.
Two things make us pay closer attention. One is width beyond about two fingers that isn't changing month to month. The other, and the bigger one, is softness. A two-finger gap you can't sink into is working fine. A one-finger gap your fingers drop straight through isn't doing its job, and you'll usually feel that as a belly that looks more pregnant by evening than in the morning, a low back that aches, or trouble getting up from lying flat without rolling to your side first.
Also note what else is going on. Leaking when you sneeze, heaviness or dragging in the vagina, pain with sex. These show up alongside diastasis a lot, because the abdominal wall and the pelvic floor are one pressure system. If you have any of them, or a gap that isn't narrowing by the time your baby is three months old, ask for a referral to a pelvic floor physical therapist. We wrote about what that first visit actually involves in our page on physical therapy for diastasis recti.
A self check is useful but it isn't a diagnosis. A PT will measure, test the tension under a few different loads, and rule out a hernia, which is a different problem that can sit in the same place. A bulge that's tender, won't flatten when you lie down, or hurts needs to be looked at promptly. Same for bleeding that soaks a pad an hour, fever, chest or calf pain, or thoughts of harming yourself or your baby: call your provider or 911.
What to do with what you found
Whatever you found, the first few weeks of work look the same, and none of it is crunches. Crunches, sit-ups, full planks and double leg lifts push pressure forward into the line that's trying to knit, and they can make doming worse. Skip them for now. Skip the all-day waist trainers too. A binder for a few hours while you're up and walking in the first couple of weeks is fine. Something that squeezes you for twelve hours a day just means your own muscles don't have to.
Start with breath. On your back or lying on your side, inhale and let your ribs widen and your belly rise. Exhale through pursed lips and feel your lower belly draw gently back toward your spine while your pelvic floor lifts, the same squeeze you'd use to hold in gas. Hold for one second. Let it all go. Ten breaths, three times a day. It feels like nothing. It's the muscle under everything else.
Once you can do that without holding your breath, clenching your glutes, or flaring your ribs, add load slowly: heel slides, bent-knee fallouts, bridges, then standing work, then carrying. Walk every day, even ten minutes. Eat protein at every meal and drink more water than you think you need. Sleep when you can, which we know is a joke some weeks.
Get clearance from your OB-GYN or midwife before doing anything beyond breathing and walking, especially after a cesarean.
The exact progression, with reps and the signs that you're ready to move up, is in our postpartum diastasis recti exercises. If you want to see what change actually looks like week to week, including what doesn't change, read diastasis recti before and after.
Our guide, The 10-Minute Mom Pooch Reset, lays out the first six weeks of this as a daily routine so you don't have to think about it.
The 10-Minute Mom Pooch Reset
The 12-week, 10-minute-a-day core and belly plan for exhausted moms: the gap check, breath-to-core, three phases, kitchen-counter and naptime routines, food that helps, and 6 printable trackers.
See the plan →Not sure yet? Take the free 2-minute quiz
Educational content from the Mom Pooch Reset team. Not medical advice for your specific situation. Get clearance from your OB-GYN or midwife before exercising after birth, and see a pelvic floor physical therapist for leaking, pain or a bulge.
