The Pregosaurus

Also known as Diastasis Recti.

Cornfed, these pics are for you!

Most of you expressed either disgust or shock when I said my stomach muscles had begun to separate.

Or ignorance.  In that you'd never even heard of the phenomenon.

I agree that this is one of those things that they like to keep pregnant women in the dark about.

It's not mentioned anywhere in What to Expect When You're Expecting except as a postpartum symptom...ahem why not mention it when it's happening as well as what to do after it's happened?

And as far as I can tell thebump.com, fitpregnancy.com, and the one million and 7 other pregnancy websites don't mention it either.

When you google it you get some rather disgusting piccies of SEVERE diastasis recti in which the muscles have fully separated and it's just SCARY.

For the record, that's not the norm, that's the exception.

To which I say, WTF?  It happens in roughly 60-70% of pregnancies, and a higher percentage of twin/multiples pregnancies, that's a huge number to just completely ignore the phenomenon all together.

Also women themselves seem to be pretty mum about it.  When I mentioned it most people said they didn't notice it had happened if it had or that they'd never even heard of it.  Very few people spoke up and said it HAD happened to them. 

So, I thought I would show you guys what it looks like.

It doesn't hurt even though it sounds painful.  I mean your muscles are SEPARATING, surely that should be painful!

It's not.

According to my yoga instructor it's very normal to happen even if you don't notice it and as long as the ligaments in between the two muscle groups don't stretch out too far, as in beyond their capacity to stretch, then it really shouldn't be a problem getting things back together after baby.

Here's mine at 27 weeks.

Normal Pregnant Lady Belly

Watch out for the Pregosaurus!

Hahaha!  Oh it cracks me up just looking at it.  

Maybe not to you guys but every time I see it I think of a dinosaur. LOL.  All I'm doing in the pregosaurus picture is lifting myself up with my stomach ie. using my stomach muscles.

And in case anyone is interested the only thing you can really do about it DURING pregnancy is continue to strengthen your transverse abdominal muscles LIGHTLY, nothing strenuous!  There's some yoga moves that are super easy and supposed to be good for the old diastisis recti situation.  One of them is honestly the belly dancer sway, seriously, swaying your hips in a figure eight.  How easy is that?

But generally speaking like all pregnancy symptoms it usually resolves itself after the birth with little effort.

I will obviously update you guys at the end of pregnancy and see how bad it gets and I will also keep everyone posted about how quickly it goes back to normal postpartum!

So, now that you've all seen it, anyone else experiencing this phenomenon I've dubbed The Pregosaurus???