{"id":14772,"date":"2026-08-11T15:00:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T15:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mutusystem.com\/en-us\/?p=14772"},"modified":"2026-08-11T15:00:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T15:00:23","slug":"new-diastasis-recti-study-2026-the-research-has-caught-up-with-what-your-body-knew-all-along","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mutusystem.com\/en-us\/diastasis-recti\/new-diastasis-recti-study-2026-the-research-has-caught-up-with-what-your-body-knew-all-along\/","title":{"rendered":"New Diastasis Recti Study (2026): The Research Has Caught Up With What Your Body Knew All Along"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>On the new Diastasis Recti scoping review by Theodorsen, Donnelly and B\u00f8, and what it means for you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you have ever lain on your back, pressed two fingers into your tummy, and felt your stomach drop at the size of the gap, this is for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For years, women have been handed a number. &#8216;Two finger widths&#8217;. &#8216;A centimetre too many&#8217;. A gap to &#8216;close&#8217; before you were allowed to run, lift, or laugh without checking. And with the number came the rules: no crunches, no twists, no planks, nothing that might make it worse. Whole years of movement, lost to caution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A major new Diastasis Recti study says in a peer-reviewed journal what needed to be said. It is time to reconsider the whole approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What the review says<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>&#8220;Diastasis Rectus Abdominis: Time to Reconsider Our Approach&#8221;<\/em><\/strong> was published in July 2026 in the Journal of Women&#8217;s &amp; Pelvic Health Physical Therapy, the journal of the Academy of Pelvic Health Physical Therapy (APTA). It was written by three of the most respected researchers in this field: physiotherapist and researcher Nina-Margrethe Theodorsen; Gr\u00e1inne Donnelly, advanced practice pelvic health physiotherapist at Absolute Physio and researcher at Cardiff Metropolitan University; and Professor Kari B\u00f8 of the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, with Dr Patricia Mota as guest editor. Between them, these women have shaped much of what we actually know about the postpartum abdominal wall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Drawing on 43 studies, here is what they found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Abdominal separation in pregnancy is a normal physiological adaptation, not a defect.<\/strong> Almost every woman&#8217;s abdominal wall widens by late pregnancy, because it is supposed to. It is making room for a baby. The authors warn explicitly against the over-pathologising of normal pregnancy-related adaptations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Most women recover, and a good number don&#8217;t fully &#8211; and both are normal.<\/strong> Around 60% still have an increased gap at six weeks postpartum, 45% at six months, 32% at a year. So recovery is the rule, but a third of women are still living with some separation twelve months on. If that&#8217;s you, nothing has gone wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>There has never been an agreed definition of when a gap becomes a diagnosis.<\/strong> Published cut-offs range from 4mm to 86mm, measured in different positions, at different points on the abdomen, at different stages of the breath. Newer data suggests a linea alba up to 21 to 28mm can be entirely normal at six months postpartum &#8211; which means many women who believe they have diastasis recti fall within the normal range and have been carrying unnecessary worry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Exercise is safe, and the old restrictions were backwards.<\/strong> Abdominal and pelvic floor training does not make the gap worse. More striking still: the studies show that curl-up type movements actually narrow the gap in the moment, while some of the &#8216;gentle&#8217; deep-core-only contractions momentarily widen it (<em>note: this is a reading during the exercise itself, not a lasting change<\/em>). The advice to avoid working the rectus muscles was not supported by the evidence it claimed to rest on. The authors are direct: guidelines built on restriction and avoidance need updating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The gap is not the goal.<\/strong> Exercise reliably improves strength, function and how women feel, whether or not the millimetres change. The review calls for care that measures what matters: function, symptoms, confidence, quality of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>And fear itself is a harm.<\/strong> The review names fear-based messaging, from clinics and from social media, as something that damages women&#8217;s body image, keeps them inactive, and turns a normal adaptation into a source of shame. The authors call on every health and fitness professional to replace it with clear, reassuring, function-focused language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What this validates<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is the ground MUTU was built on, and has stood on for well over a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We have always said the gap is a symptom, not the enemy, and that chasing a number keeps women anxious and stuck. We built a programme around function, strength and confidence rather than closure. We said it is never too late, that a strong and capable body can include a gap, and that a body after a baby is not something to be fixed as fast as possible but rebuilt with respect. We said fear was the biggest blocker women face, long before fear appeared in a journal as a named harm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 2015, I published a piece on <a href=\"https:\/\/mutusystem.com\/en-us\/diastasis-recti\/exercising-with-diastasis-recti\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">crunches and curl-ups with diastasis recti<\/a>, arguing that no movement is forbidden, that the question is readiness rather than permission. Before publishing it, we ran our thinking past the renowned Canadian <a href=\"https:\/\/learnwithdianelee.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">physiotherapist Diane Lee<\/a>, who was unequivocal. Abdominal curls matter, she told us, and full sit-ups are a different question entirely. As she put it: <em>&#8220;It&#8217;s a wrong message to say never do a curl-up! That isn&#8217;t life.&#8221;<\/em> Her emphasis was on teaching the movement properly and maintaining tension through the midline, focusing on the strategy rather than the reps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Underneath that post, in October 2015, a physiotherapist specialising in obstetrics left a comment describing a gradual shift at her national conference: women&#8217;s health physios were becoming, in her words, less forceful with their exercise limitations. She hoped to see studies pay closer attention to technique.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Eleven years later, those studies exist. And they say what Diane Lee said, and what that physiotherapist hoped for, and what we have been telling women all along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">And what we have evolved on, because that is how evidence works<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Years ago, MUTU, like almost everyone in this field, published lists of exercises &#8216;to avoid&#8217;. Crunches, sit-ups, twists, certain yoga poses. That was the honest best of the evidence at the time, and it came from a protective instinct. As the research moved, we moved: away from prohibition and towards progression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This month, following the publication of this review, we also went back through our own library. The avoid-lists needed to be updated. The language about organs pushing through the gap is gone, because we now understand that kind of imagery does its own damage. What replaces it is readiness: no movement is forbidden, movements are earned. You rebuild the foundations, you learn to manage pressure and load, and then crunches, planks, lifting, running and everything else come back on the menu, one confident step at a time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You can see the updated guidance here: <a href=\"https:\/\/mutusystem.com\/en-us\/diastasis-recti\/exercising-with-diastasis-recti\/\">exercising with diastasis recti, and which ab exercises are safe<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That is what evidence-based means. Not that you were right all along about everything, but that you keep listening, and you update your advice publicly when the science asks you to. We will always keep doing exactly that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Credit where it is due<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This shift did not happen by accident. It happened because researchers and clinicians did years of unglamorous work, much of it on topics the wider health system has been slow to fund or take seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alongside the review&#8217;s authors, this includes Dr Patricia Mota, whose measurements gave us realistic norms for the postpartum abdominal wall; Sandra Gluppe and colleagues, whose trials rehabilitated the curl-up; Diane Lee and Professor Paul Hodges, who moved the conversation from gap width to how the linea alba actually works; Dr Sin\u00e9ad Dufour, who has long argued for tension and function over distance; and Silvia Giagio, Dr Tamara Rial Rebullido and colleagues, whose work on #diastasisrecti content showed how much fear women are absorbing online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And the pelvic health physiotherapists translating all of this into everyday care, in the UK, the US and far beyond, often while explaining to a sceptical room why this matters. We are proud to build on their work, and to keep pointing women towards them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What to do with this, today<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you take one thing from this research, take this: your body did something normal, and you are allowed to move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stop measuring your worth in finger widths. Notice instead what your body can do this week that it could not do last month. If you have symptoms that worry you &#8211; a bulge or doming under load, leaking, heaviness, pain &#8211; see a pelvic health physiotherapist, because that is exactly what they are there for, and good care should leave you more confident, not more afraid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And if you want a clear, progressive path to rebuild strength and trust in your body, whether you are six weeks or sixteen years postpartum, that is what MUTU is for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The gap was never the whole story. You were never broken. Now the research says so too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Reference: Theodorsen N-M, Donnelly G, B\u00f8 K. Diastasis Rectus Abdominis: Time to Reconsider Our Approach. A Scoping Review. Journal of Women&#8217;s &amp; Pelvic Health Physical Therapy, published ahead of print 28 July 2026. DOI: <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1097\/JWH.0000000000000383\"><em>10.1097\/JWH.0000000000000383<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the new Diastasis Recti scoping review by Theodorsen, Donnelly and B\u00f8, and what it means for you. If you have ever lain on your back, pressed two fingers into your tummy, and felt your stomach drop at the size of the gap, this is for you. For years, women have been handed a number. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14801,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diastasis-recti"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>New Diastasis Recti Research (2026) | A Summary<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A major 2026 study says it&#039;s time to reconsider diastasis recti advice. 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