QuestionAfter my second pregnancy, I had a small umbilical hernia. The doctors wanted to go ahead and do a repair on it since they were afraid it might become incarcerated. Anyway, long story short, I had the surgery done in Feb. of 2008. At the time, my husband and I weren't sure if we were going to have more children or not.
Now, almost 2 years after the surgery, we're thinking about growing our family. But we're worried about my stomach muscles and the hernia repair site (it was repaired with mesh). I had a diastasis of about 3 finger widths, but I think it is pretty much closed at this point after exercise. I was wondering if you could recommend any exercises that would strengthen the muscles around where the hernia was, and also the area that diastasis occurs so that they won't happen again? Have you heard of any success stories of pregnancy after hernia repair, without ripping another hernia and having surgery again? Would maternity belts help any in supporting the belly and preventing the mesh from ripping?
Thanks!
AnswerYou can prevent, or at the very least lessen the severity of diastasis recti/ abdominal separation during your next pregnancy. This will reduce the stress on your hernia repair.
The key is to build, then maintain, as much strength as possible in your deepest muscle, your Transverse Abdominis, or TvA.
DON'T wear a maternity belt regularly as this will actually weaken your TvA over time. You need to build your body's internal girdle, not wear a girdle.
Two safe abdominal exercises for pregnancy that do this can be found at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cdSxWvF06g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkTlpSCmJyY
More info about diastasis recti can be found on page:
http://befitmom.com/abdominal_separation.html
