My latest ambition and push is to encourage women to get their baseline. By baseline, I mean know your own body prior to pregnancy. Measure the NORMAL, naturally occurring separation between the sides of your abdomen, now. We have a study that told us that women who have never had children can have up to a 3-3.5 cm gap at various points along their center. What’s your norm?  Ideally this would happen prior to having kids. Too late? How about suggest it to your friends who haven’t had a kid yet? And it’s not too late to measure your teenage daughter. I look forward to being able to tell my daughter immediately postpartum that her abdominal gap is only XXX cm wider than it was when she was a teenager. That is such a different message than going into pregnancy thinking you started with a ZERO and now you have a 3 cm diastasis, and now you may need surgery. If you actually started at 2 cm, which is considered the average width, a 3 cm gap doesn’t sound so intimidating. 

And get out a mirror and take a peek at your under-carriage. If you have not really ever looked at labia, you might be shocked at what yours look like. So when you look again during pregnancy or after delivery, you can tell the difference between what is a natural change or your natural appearance and something worthy of a visit to the doctor. How about internal exams prenatally? Let’s have a baseline measure so we know what has truly shifted postpartum. 

Having this understanding can help us shape women’s expectations. We can plant seeds that will grow into healthy self-concept postpartum and fight all the fear being generated out there. 

This is a great place we can partner with docs and midwives too! By asking them to check women at regular visits or a prenatal check-in. These are actionable steps we can take NOW to future build for the next generation of moms! Join me to encourage women and teen girls to get their baseline measures for abdominal and pelvic health concerns. Above all, help them understand their body NOW, before they get pregnant. This will help shape their perception and expectations of their “normal” baseline goals postpartum. Let’s work together to shape and build the next generation of moms. #educatedhope

I explored future building for the next generation of moms in depth in a recent podcast with the Connected Yoga Teacher Podcast.

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2020 live course schedule coming soon!