Diastasis recti: the finger-width self-check

Diastasis recti is a widening of the gap between the two halves of the rectus abdominis — the paired 'six-pack' muscles that run down the front of your belly — along the connective tissue in the middle (the linea alba). It's an expected part of pregnancy as the belly grows, and it's very common right after birth. The simple at-home check is the finger-width test: lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat, rest your fingers flat along the midline of your belly (pointing toward your feet), and gently lift your head and shoulders like the start of a curl-up. As the muscle bands tense you can feel the soft gap between them — check just above the navel, at the navel, and just below it, and notice roughly how many finger-widths wide it is and whether the middle domes up. It's a rough self-screen to guide a conversation, not a measurement tool or a diagnosis.

There's no single official cut-off, and this tool deliberately doesn't invent a precise number or a 'score' — the guidance here is qualitative. As a general rule of thumb, a gap of about one fingertip or less is within the typical range, and a small separation along the midline is normal even long after birth. About two fingers is common in the early months and usually narrows on its own as the abdominal wall recovers, often over the first eight weeks or so and continuing beyond that. A persistent gap of roughly two to three fingers or more — especially if it's still there past about eight weeks, or the midline domes or bulges when you sit up — is the kind that's worth having a clinician or a pelvic-floor physical therapist assess. They can measure it properly and guide safe rebuilding.

In many people the separation narrows on its own as the body recovers over the weeks and months after birth — that's the usual course for smaller gaps, and gentle core and pelvic-floor work supports it. A wider or persistent separation is less likely to fully close by itself and is where a proper assessment helps: a pelvic-floor or physical therapist can check how you're managing pressure through your core, tailor exercises, and coach lifting and rising mechanics, and a clinician can weigh in if symptoms like back pain, a bulge, or core weakness are bothering you. There's no need to self-diagnose or self-treat — the point of the home check is simply to tell you whether it's worth bringing up.

The general foundation is gentle, breathing-led deep-core and pelvic-floor work — the kind a postpartum or pelvic-floor physical therapist teaches — along with good mechanics: rolling to your side to get up instead of crunching straight up, and bracing gently before you lift. Early on, many people are guided to ease off traditional sit-ups and crunches (which can push the midline outward) and heavy lifting or hard straining, at least until the abdominal wall has recovered and a therapist has cleared loaded core work. This is framed as general guidance, not a prescription: what's right depends on your birth, your recovery, and your body, so a clinician or PT who can see you is the best person to set the plan.

Two situations. The first is warning signs that aren't about the width at all: a painful, tender, or bulging lump at the midline — especially one that gets more obvious when you cough, strain, or sit up — can signal a hernia and should be checked promptly, and severe abdominal pain needs care now. If a midline bulge won't push flat and the skin over it is red, or you also feel sick or are vomiting, treat that as an emergency. The second is the non-urgent but worth-it situation: a separation of about two to three fingers or more that persists past roughly eight weeks, doming along the midline when you rise, ongoing back pain, or core weakness that's affecting daily life. None of those are emergencies, but they're all good reasons to see a clinician or a pelvic-floor physical therapist who can assess it properly.

Yes. This tool runs entirely in your browser: the finger-width you pick, how far postpartum you are, and anything you tick are read on your own device and are never sent to a server, stored, or shared — close the tab and they're gone. We treat pregnancy and postpartum data as sensitive by design, so there's nothing to delete and no account involved. The result is general educational information based on published postpartum-recovery guidance; it isn't medical advice, a diagnosis, or a substitute for the clinician or physical therapist who can actually examine you.