Does diastasis recti cause urinary incontinence?
The short answer is no. The long answer is that while these things may be correlated, either is unlikely causation for the other. A study done in 2019 on women experiencing urinary incontinence 6 months postpartum compared to women without urinary incontinence 6 months postpartum found no statistical differences between groups on diastasis recti.
So what does this mean for us? The postpartum journey is going to look different for every new mom. Postpartum care needs to be individualized to specific symptoms and not generalized to “everyone experiences that postpartum.”
Diastasis recti should not be a scary topic, but more so a normalized experience as every pregnancy will create stretching in the connective tissue for babies to grow. It is beneficial to strengthen the abdomen during pregnancy and after pregnancy, even during the stretching of the connective tissue.
Urinary incontinence should also not be a scary topic, the pelvic floor experiences trauma following both vaginal delivery and cesarean delivery. In both types of deliveries, the pelvic floor muscles stretch to create room for the baby. After delivery, the muscles can change and may need guidance on relearning their job. Signs of urinary incontinence, painful intercourse, constipation and many others can be signs that those muscles need guidance relearning their job.
The good news? Pelvic floor physical therapy can help with all of it - Diastasis recti, urinary incontinence, painful intercourse, constipation, and many other things!
Experiencing any of these symptoms or want to know if pelvic floor physical therapy is right for? Book a free discovery call now! Loon State has three convenient locations in Lake Elmo, Linden Hills, and Hopkins.
-Lexi Noel, DPT
