Mom's Guide to Diastasis Recti: A Program for Preventing and Healing Abdominal Separation Caused by Pregnancy

Mom's Guide to Diastasis Recti is great book to keep on the shelf because it can be used in different stages of your life. I love the quick-start guide. It takes you exactly where you need, whether you are using preventive exercise to reduce the risk of diastasis recti, getting into postpartum workouts, or if you've found this book well after having a baby and you’re looking to reduce diastasis recti.Author Pamela Ellgen explains how diastasis recti occurs and most importantly, how to possibly prevent it. Her own personal story is cool too, because it shows that it is an issue one can have, even with a healthy lifestyle.My favorite part in the book is the postpartum prevention section. These are exercises that are good for many women, so it could be easy to get a non-pregnant friend to join in on exercise. Also, these exercises aren’t very strenuous and can be done shortly after pregnancy with permission from a doctor. All the sections have plenty of pictures to help make sure excercises are done correctly.

Overall great effort by Pamela Ellgen. I so appreciate her attempts to keep it simple. The photos are very basic but helpful. I've become an alignment "junkie" of sorts so I'm disappointed when photos go against the alignment cues the author teaches like p. 44 which pretty clearly has an anterior pelvic tilt & rib flare/thrust going on. Also, I've learned with kegels that the release (inhale) is just as important, if not more so, than the squeeze (exhale). Most of us carry a lot of tension in our pelvic floors, so it's crucial to learn how to totally release the tension so that we can re-train our pelvic floors to be reflexive in order to become stronger. I wish that the author had gone into the mechanics of the pelvic floor in greater detail. For those of us who like a little more in-depth explanation as to how to repair DR (& prolapse & all sorts of other alignment issues, btw), I highly recommend Katy Bowman's DR book along with the "Restore Your Core" program & facebook page by Lauren Ohayon who is certified through Katy Bowman. On a really positive note, I recommend this book to everyone I know who has pain/dysfunction in pretty much any part of the body - hips, knees, pelvis, shoulders, etc. It's an all around great book that would be helpful for anyone.

i highly recommend this book! There is nothing better than the gift of life but there is a huge downside and that's getting your body back into shape. Even in a loving, healthy relationship, where I have a partner who helps and that I can count on, I find it hard to make time to go to the gym the way I used to. I got this book gifted to me by a nurse, who was a new mom herself, and she told me to give it a try, when I coud. I absolutely loved this book, it was more than a workout book, it was an approach to helping me understand my new body and how to get it feeling (and looking) the way that it should. I found the book easy to read and easy to understand, which is not always the case with these type of books. Working through the phases made it feel as though I was accomplishing sometihng in my day-to-day life. I often feel as though I am working around the clock for my new angel, and this book gave me an opportunity to feel as though I am working through something for myself, without sacrificing my time with Kennedy. Highly recommend this book to all you mamas out there.

This is an great book for a first time pregnancy. Exercises in this book can be done throughout the entire pregnancy. There are 21 exercises that can be done during pregnancy to prevent diastasis recti, 4 for postpartum prevention, and a 3 phase treatment plan. There are also exercises to help lose that baby weight put on during the pregnancy. These exercises will “help reduce diastasis recti, improve core strength and achieve a flat stomach”. Illustrations are very clear and easy to understand. I especially like that there iare workout schedules for each phase. Some exercise equipment is needed; weights and exercise ball. Many people already have these items. This book would be a great gift for someone who just announced their pregnancy.

The Mom’s Guide to Diastasis Recti addresses the “elephant in the room” for every woman who has given birth – we exercise and even lose weight, but the lack of muscle tone and the protruding belly is very discouraging. What is unique about Mom’s Guide is it provides advice and exercises for women who are pregnant, who have just given birth or had their child several years ago. The exercises are designed to improve core strength and flatten that stomach. Rather than just provide exercises, The Mom’s Guide provides a simple explanation of how a woman’s abdominal strength is compromised during pregnancy and how that can even lead to low back pain. A real benefit is the exercises are illustrated with photos of a “normal” woman- not a model, and are simple enough to do right at home and in 10 minutes a day.

Very helpful book, excellent resource glad I bought it. Alot better than anything I could find at the library.

This book was truly helpful in healing my oversized belly that I have had from giving birth to twins 11 years ago. It has taken me this long to do something about it. This book is not a go-getter super fitness program. I like that it is geared to real life moms. The photos and the exercises were easy to follow along and do them at your own pace. It also gives helpful nutritional advice. I wish I had bought it 11 years ago!!!

Very informative and easy to understand.

Great information and excellent exercise program. I’m working through it right now and can definitely notice a change when I’m consistently using it.

Good book. Shame there is no DVD.

When somebody writes to keep contact between lower back and floor, I stop reading. This is the way to compress your spine even more. .

There are better reference guides for diastasis recti on the market.