What They Didn’t Tell You: From Core to Floor

What No One Told You About Healing Diastasis

• Millie Schweky

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In this empowering episode, Dr. Millie Schweky sits down with personal trainer and women’s fitness expert Zoe Corin to uncover the truth about healing diastasis recti — the common abdominal separation so many women experience after birth.

Together, they break down what diastasis really is, why it happens, and how to safely rebuild your core connection after pregnancy. From understanding the science behind your abs to practical tips for strength, breathwork, and movement, this conversation will leave you feeling informed, supported, and inspired to take control of your body’s recovery journey.

Whether you’re newly postpartum, years into motherhood, or simply wanting to reconnect with your core, this episode is your go-to guide for healing from the inside out.

Links:

Follow Millie:  @milliedpt

Join the Core to Floor community:  https://millie-schweky.mykajabi.com/intimacy 

Connect with Zoe Corin: @strongerwithzo





Hey sis, welcome back to what they didn't tell you from core to floor. I'm your girl, Dr. Millie Schweky of Doctor of Physical Therapy, specializing in pelvic floor and women's health, teaching you everything you need to know. On today's episode, we are here with Zoe Corin, personal trainer, group exercise instructor, and we're going to be talking about healing diastasis recti and reconnecting to your abs.

So Zoe, welcome to the show. Thanks so much. My favorite topics.

Okay, good. I'm so happy because there's so much misinformation out there about this abdominal separation that happens after birth. So you know what, let's just start with explaining what diastasis is and why it happens.

Okay, so I call it diastasis recti. I guess there's like a million. Diastasis, diastasis, recti, recti, D-R, D-R-A.

It's a really strange word. Yeah. Okay, so basically what is the physiological thing that happens here is that your belly, your stomach is made up of muscles, as everyone knows, and in between those muscles, right in the middle, where you're kind of from your belly button all the way down to your pubic bone, all the way up to your, like your diaphragm, your rib area, there's fascia.

Okay, there's tissue. And as your belly grows when you give birth, those muscles are separating and the tissue is becoming larger. So the space of the tissue between the muscles on the side are becoming larger and larger.

It happens to 100% of women by the end of their pregnancy. The question is, we check for diastasis post-birth because that's when you assume it to go back together, but it's just an assumption and it doesn't happen to all women. Sometimes they're left with the space, the gap between that body.

Exactly. So basically, if it's the six-pack muscle, for those who don't know what the rectus is, or even said rectus, but the six-pack muscle, yeah, the six-pack muscle and some of the other muscles like the obliques do attach into this fascia line. Again, that like line you have going down the middle of your belly.

And a lot of times, like women will feel like their abs are not turning on when they sit up, why could I stick my entire fist in between my abs or like into my stomach and like, I feel my organs moving. And it's like, yes, you might have diastasis. So it typically takes about 12 weeks for it to heal on its own.

And even when a woman comes to me in that 12-week mark, I'm able to assess, are you on track? Meaning, do I think you're going to be where you should be at the 12-week mark? Or does it look like you're a little bit behind because the separation is large? And that's when we start working and making a plan. Now, there are different types of diastasis, which is something super important to note. Some are deeper than others.

Some are wider than others. Some happen above the belly button, so closer to the sternum or what's really the best bone. And some separations are more prevalent at the belly button.

And then there's some that are below the belly button. And then guess what? You can have combinations of all of these. Above the belly button and narrow or above the belly button and deep, right? Above the belly button and wide.

You can have all these different combinations. So depending on the type of diastasis that you have, the treatment is going to change. Because if it's like, for example, an upper diastasis, we'll be focusing on your rib cage more.

If it's a lower diastasis, we'll probably be working on your pelvic positioning more. If it's a middle diastasis, we're working on, you know, maybe your back is tight. There's just so much going on and so much nuance to it.

But there are a handful, I would say, of tried and true things that you could do on a general level just to get that connection going. So we're going to be diving into some of this today. I think a lot of it is to do with just recreating that connection.

And then once you've got that going, it kind of, the healing becomes quite natural. It's often because the connection, like people forget how to connect to their deep core. Exactly.

There's just cases where it's a bit more nuanced. Like there's tough, there's tough cases, which I guess are the cases I see. Because most people have the diastasis, walk around with it.

And as a result of just time passing and going to exercise classes, and we're all like, you need more spas, back-to-back baths. But I'm just saying like, as a result of just time going on or just doing generic exercise, if it's not such a complicated case, you could follow a more generic kind of program and it could get better. But there are cases where you really should be coming in because it's just not healing from all of that.

So that's why some people will say, like, I bought this online program and it worked. And it was generic, because you had like a really minor case, you just needed to strengthen your muscles. But some people that have like a truer separation due to muscle dysfunction and like misfiring muscle patterns, those people are going to need like a bit more of like a new, a nuanced approach.

So there's like a really wide range of this. And that's why I try to steer clear of like listening to what everyone online says, because they're really just talking about, usually they're just talking about the natural separation that almost everyone has after birth and not, you know, the tougher cases that actually have like a root of the problem that we need to look elsewhere outside of the abdominals for. So if someone wanted to test themselves at home or if they wanted to, you know, just check if I have diastasis, how do you instruct people to do it? I think this only works if you know how to breathe properly.

You do the sit-up test? Yeah. But if you don't know how to breathe properly, it's a very hard test to be doing at home. So often people will say to me, hey, I think I checked for diastasis, but I'm actually not sure if I have it.

Can you recheck me? So it usually requires, it's usually helpful to have someone else double check up for you that's a professional and that knows how to check it properly. There's a lot of people who say they know how to check it, but also don't check it properly. It's really important to get it nicely checked because sometimes it's just a matter of, as we said, just kind of realignment this bit more co-connection.

I've actually typed in on YouTube, like diastasis self-check, and I watched all the videos that come up and they're not all accurate. A lot of them will have you, like basically the way to check for diastasis, if you don't know, is to lie down on your back and they basically have you stick your fingers in your abs and feel the width, the tension, the depth of what's going on there. But first of all, if you're not trained, you're not, you don't know like exactly what it is that you're looking for.

And two, a lot of people in the videos will pick up their heads way too much. So that obviously you're going to get a contraction, even if it's other muscles helping with the abs. So you're not going to get like the most accurate thing when you do it at home.

But I do have people, you know, just check before they come in so they could tell me what they think is going on. So I get a question a lot of the time of like, how do I know if I have it? How do I know if I have it? I would say the most common things people say is I still look like I'm pregnant and my baby's like six months old, or I feel like I'm always bloated. I don't feel my abs working at all.

When I do exercises, my posture feels off. What else do people tell you? People say like, I really felt like my, I cannot, like I can't do it. Like, you know, I couldn't do a sit up before I gave birth and now I can't do it.

And like six months into giving birth and like after giving birth and I can't do a sit up. By the way, I had a very minor diastasis and after my second, I couldn't do sit ups. It took me a while.

Oh, push-ups took me forever. But that's a, that's a bit harder. Sit ups, I remember at the six week mark, I was actually in a postpartum class and they were like, okay, you're like all six to nine months postpartum, like let's go for sit ups.

And I couldn't get myself up and I really had to work myself there. And with good breathing and everything, now I could rock those sit ups. My youngest is now turning three, so I hope I'd be able to do them by now.

You're killing the sit ups, Mel. Yeah, but it's, it's, it's definitely one of those things that I, I think, I think you have a feeling you have it. If you're, I think people, there's going to be people that will be like, oh, I've checked myself and I think I'm fine.

You're probably fine. That's the truth. If you're fine, you're probably fine.

As the people that are like, oh, I think I might have it. You probably have it. If you think you have it, then the people that come in that tell me, I don't think they have it either.

They don't have it, but they do have core dysfunction, meaning like there's four layers of abdominal muscles and they're not working evenly. And like one group will be taking over for the other. So I retrain them to be more even and they'll have weakness as a, as an effect of that.

Right. So they don't have a separation, but they do have weakness coming along. So like, great thing you came in.

You don't have the abscess, but you have a lot to work on, or they do have it. And I'll just go a step further with that. I've had patients that needed surgery for it.

And we, that's like a more intense case where I've actually had patients that we do like six-ish months of prehab, pre-surgery. And I've had a couple of patients along the way actually cancel surgery because they were like, I could live with this. And I've had some patients that they get to the surgery and the surgeon's super impressed because they actually worked on the muscles and now their repair is actually easier to do.

And then their, their, the rehab after the surgery is a lot smoother because their muscles and their mind are already connected. So a lot of the times people do this repair surgery and you know, they stitch it pretty tight and then they end up with pressure going down. Not because the surgeon did a bad job, but because you didn't learn how to properly manage this new pressure that you have in your system.

They just did it for you. So since you didn't learn it, you need to, it's your responsibility to kind of like go out there and learn how to do it. So I think it also depends on if you're talking width or depth.

Correct. Correct. It changes things.

It does change things. Yes, it does totally. But we're not going to go too nuanced in that.

We could do a whole masterclass on that. So do you think it's ever too late for someone to start healing this? Never. I had someone come to me recently that she had six kids.

She has six kids and she was like three years postpartum and she said, Oh, I basically have diastasis for like ever. And I don't know, I never dealt with it. And we had like, she had such quick regaining of core strength.

It was so awesome to see. And she basically came to me like as a last resort. She was like, Oh, I guess I should deal with this.

I really feel functionally that this is tough on me. Like she felt that she was always looking pregnant. Her belly was always working.

Like if she was doing any exercise, she always felt her core trying to work and it just couldn't work. And she basically in the end decided to come and it was the response was much quicker than either of us expected. I love it.

I don't think that's your average. I think you can come like 10 years later. Yes.

It's it's it's a muscle. Why can't we work on a muscle? You could train it. Always train a muscle.

You could always train it. I know you could guarantee you're going to fix it totally. But like I don't have a totally fixed diastasis.

Like you do the best you can like what you've got. Yeah. And some people just need more consistency than others.

The research actually says you need to put 20 minutes in three times a week to to get results. And so that's usually what I that's the that's the minimum I recommend to my patients. Like you need 20 minutes three times a week if you have a real separation.

It's just it's just science. It sounds like a lot but like you feel free but like you could throw on TikTok and Instagram and watch TV for 20 minutes three times a week like you could totally do your core work. Like I always say you don't it's not that you don't have the time.

We all we are short on time. We're all moms. But let's be real like you are scrolling.

You are. You are you are watching TV. We're all on our phones too much.

So I know you have the time because we're all on our phones too much. Yeah. It's all about your priorities.

Another thing I wanted to touch on was shoot I had something really good. Oh yeah. I had this I had this this person that I met a woman that I met and she was like yeah I'm about to become pregnant like I'm going to try and I'll probably get pregnant soon and I have diastasis and I don't want to bother working on it because I'm about to be pregnant again.

Like why would I work on it if I could just work on an after like I'll be done having kids is my last like OK. Like I hear you. I really hear you.

It sounds like it makes sense. However did you know that if you have diastasis during pregnancy it actually affects the baby's position and it and it can affect your birth because when the muscles are weaker and your belly actually distends more and the baby's not being held up by our abdominals as well. Yeah it's super interesting people don't realize it like if you have weaker abs your baby's not as supported and can have a harder time engaging into the pelvis.

So it's it's literally like work on it now even in pregnancy I do core work with people that have diastasis just so the muscles are on line because we're not fixing an abdominal separation during pregnancy obviously but we're activating everything well so that when they give birth it's like no problem I know exactly where these muscles are now they can get to putting them back together and you know the working on the core during pregnancy helps actually have a much better birth. It's it's something that no one knows that having a diastasis can actually affect how you feel in pregnancy your back pain your hip pain how well you can breathe it can actually affect things like like you know round ligament pain, pubic pain, rib pain yeah all these things so I don't see it I don't I never really see like oh let me just wait as an option like the best time to get started it was always yesterday. I love that yeah I will say on the flip side of thing there's a lot of obsession over diastasis recti diastasis recti so you don't want to be too obsessive about it that we're not challenging the core and then we go obviously into you're saying like trying to play it safe too much that you're not doing enough you need to do you need to try you need to get you need to like overload yourself slightly otherwise there's gonna be no change so I think that's like you know you can meet someone that's like I don't know a year postpartum and she's like oh yeah I have diastasis recti so I'm not doing sit-ups and I'm like what like let's work towards that or maybe you can even do a sit-up you've never tried right like there's so much hesitation around it because there's such a talk about this separation in your stomach and so much fear around it and really it's a very grey topic like you know the research happens to suck yeah like what's the problem is anything to with people but like it's really a grey topic and even when you're pregnant and the whole topic about coning we're not obviously gonna get into this right now but you know it's also also great so I feel like the you don't want to over obsess it too I will yeah I see a lot of people over obsessing with it I can actually tell you from my own experience after having my first and I wasn't as well versed in diastasis healing I took it too slow when it came to the ab work I was like doing bird dogs and and like TVI and pelvic tilts for way too long of the journey when I was really ready to like take it up a level like single leg lifts and I wasn't like ready to go to double leg lifts like I I really staggered it too much because any anytime I saw my back arching a little bit or a little bit of coning I'd freak out even though sometimes you need to like allow them when you come up with yeah you need you just need to allow slight compensations to happen so you could work on the next step otherwise you'll never get there but you need to just work there slightly if anyone we just need to like maybe clarify what coning is coning is that phenomenon when you're lying down for example and you come up and you see your abdomen create this doming or triangle shape in the middle it looks like an alien's popping out of your belly you'll very likely see it during pregnancy but it could remain there after pregnancy and it all it is is your body's way of managing pressure within the abdomen you just don't want it to be the dominant way that you move that you're always coning because that means that there's a pressure imbalance in your body and things need to be evened out so a lot of what we look at in physical therapy is releasing the tissues around the area so that the pressure can go to the correct place and in I think in a more you know training kind of setting we're also making sure the correct muscles are contracting at the right time to make sure that we're holding everything in and you're handling the different um the different parts of your abdominal muscles so not overworking just the front of your abdominals also working the kind of the sides the deep abdominals um so I think it is an element of trying to make sure that um you're kind of creating a balance throughout your stomach I think that's really important it's balancing the abdominal muscles balancing the four layers of your abdominals and also the pressure from your ribs your abdomen your diaphragm your pelvis but it starts with breath and breath is always like the first thing it felt like a broken record I know but like breathing's everything we're obsessed with breathing and I like people like you're so boring but also like this rehab is a little bit boring like we can't deny it's a little bit boring we are the boring people but we're also fun but we're no it's just that the actual the actual process it's a boring it's a it's a bit it's a pretty boring no I think I think no I think the concept is interesting I actually do I think the actual I know but I think the the actual like being in the process of healing something like this it's like you're doing this exercise really slowly 10 times on each side really slow same thing and guess what you're doing the same thing again in two days and the same thing again in two days and once it feels easy then we'll move on but you're gonna do it like really slow and controlled this many times before you move on and that's what's getting you better but you know what I think we think it's boring because we have a hard time just slowing down and grounding and connecting to your body so exactly you could use it attitude at the end of the day yeah you could use it as an opportunity to connect to your body and make it that meditate meditative kind of thing but um you know a lot of us are just not wired that way right now because we're in go go go mode what are the most common things that people do that makes this separation worse when you're unable to breathe with control if you're doing things if you're starting to do things like um sit-ups bicycles even push-ups anything that's kind of creating pressure um into that abdominal area and you're not holding the pressure then you will probably see this kind of still this coning type of thing or wait kind of your belly falling forward it's very hard to tell postpartum because you haven't got the same um pressure pushing outward so you've not got that kind of same your belly doesn't look the same right so your belly's kind of a little bit more flabbier there's extra skin so it's much harder to see it compared to a pregnant person because the pregnant person you've got a lot of stretched skin you're seeing it all there so i think the harder thing is actually kind of noticing and that's more in body so i feel like it's a more of a you you feel a weakness you feel like you're not able to collect um i feel like that's the biggest difference because when you're pregnant you're like oh i see i'm coning when you're postpartum there's a fat layers going on there you can't necessarily see your coning in the same way so it's more about wait do i feel like i'm really able to collect my stomach or is everything just falling down and falling apart yeah it's harder to get in touch the muscles also have been stretched mechanically so it's harder to feel them in space like you actually can't feel them as easily that's why we talk so much about the connection also what they what i think what makes it worse a lot of the times is like people go back to things like jogging and jumping too quickly as well as anything with a double leg lift dude like to get both legs off the floor when you're on your back is people don't realize how advanced and progressive a move that is to do something like a double leg lift like that is not people a year postpartum that's yeah i even struggle with it sometimes it's something that could take years for anyone to get down like my kids almost three and i can't do a hollow hold for more than i don't know how many seconds but like those things are hard bulge really can come up pretty quickly and it's hard to control yeah i agree totally gotta be a little bit more you've gotta start moderate and take it up from there i say like star low but but do challenge do challenge so say like at the end of the day it's it's really about structuring yourself so that you're healing layer by layer it's not just about you know making your abs look a certain way although i think that is valid i think the vanity is valid to like kind of want to go back to something like what you looked like before i don't feel comfortable shaming women into feeling like they must be okay with their totally different body i think it's totally normal to like miss what you used to look like yeah and um just having like a really structured program that walks you through it is going to be really good so whether you go to a personal trainer whether you go to pt a combo which is like my favorite kind of thing or following some sort of online program that you know is vetted and good and written by the right people is going to be you know one of the best ways to go about that definitely okay this was a really informative episode it was it was i mean i love this topic i could talk about it yeah i feel like we could do a whole nother diocese episode so thank you guys for listening and we're gave you some good info that you can kind of take away from here and do something about yeah so we'll see you in the next one we're excited send this to all your friends.