A campaign calling for abdominal separation checks to be a prescriptive part of postnatal aftercare has been launched this month.
Currently, neither GP or midwifery courses include any training for Diastasis Recti (DR) examinations, an oversight campaigner and women’s health specialist PT Sam Blakey says needs correcting.
“This simple check takes a couple of minutes and can pick up a problem that undetected, can trigger a multitude of bigger issues,” says Sam, a mother of five, who only discovered her own DR by accident 14 years after the birth of her youngest son.
“A mum who knows that she has separated abdominal muscles can take measures to avoid the kind of exercises and movements that might make it worse and look for help to restore their muscles. Ignorance is not bliss; undetected a separation can lead to other complications. These can include prolapses, incontinence and postural issues.”
Sam believes her campaign, ‘For Crying Out Loud!’, is necessary to raise awareness about this issue, to bring in the changes needed. She believes, ultimately, it’s a money-saving solution for the NHS as a preventative tool for later complications.
To back up her call, Sam has compiled a questionnaire which she hopes will give a nationwide picture of the current standards of postnatal care.
“9 times out of 10, I am the first professional in my area to identify a Diastasis Recti in a client, after it has been missed at earlier opportunities,” explains Sam.
“The most recent NHS guidelines for postnatal GP checks were published this month (Feb 2025) and still do not mention this issue. To try and publicise the importance of this check, I offer free webinars and workshops for GPs and midwives demonstrating how to do them. They have been well received by the medics who have attended, but it’s really a drop in the ocean.”
“It’s not ok for women to live with leaky bladders, or to be in discomfort or pain from prolapses, simply due to them having given birth and not knowing they had this problem. Both of these issues stop women from doing the kind of stuff that helps us keep our sanity, like impactful exercise. Worst case scenario, we are simply unable to function normally,” adds Sam.
“I recently saw a quote that sums this campaign up perfectly. “Women are not a niche; we literally make all the people!”
The campaign is called FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! because enough of putting women’s postnatal well-being behind everything else. Things need to change.
There needs to be:-
· Greater emphasis on pre and post-natal training at medical school.
· Extend after-care beyond 6-12 weeks and into the first year so that post-natal depression and other medical issues resulting from giving birth can be picked up earlier.
· Make examinations for abdominal separation a prescribed part of the 6-8 week check.
· GPs and midwives to be comprehensively trained in how to conduct this simple test.
· Clear rehabilitation pathways offered to women who are found to have separated muscles.
Concludes Sam: “I am convinced bringing in these checks and extending postnatal care into the first year, will pay dividends in the long-term and actually save the NHS money.
By taking the time to fill in this questionnaire if you have had a child in the last 10 years will give us data to support this call.
I am confident the statistics will back up our argument, so that the NICE (which sets healthcare standards) and the health department within the Government will recognise the short term and longterm benefits both to new mums and to the national purse.”
Please fill in the short questionnaire here– it should only take a couple of minutes and really could help benefit other mums.
About Sam:
Sam Blakey is an international PT, Pilates and senior Hypopressives instructor who built an award winning fitness company in Singapore. Her company, Ooberfit, was twice voted ‘Best Fitness Company’ by a national magazine. Whilst living in Singapore she noticed a gap (literally!) in the fitness market and began working with postnatal mums with Diastasis Recti, learning her trade alongside expert women’s health physios.
In 2017 she returned to the UK, settling in Harrogate, North Yorkshire and launched Oobermama, focussing almost entirely on women’s health, an area she is passionate about.
Her campaign calling for more extensive post natal checks is fuelled by the difficult and often frustrating journeys she has taken with clients, over the past seven or so years, as they deal with postnatal complications, many of them oblivious to their abdominal separations
*Sponsored Blog
