Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 0:05
We've heard those horror stories about how a twin pregnancy can wreak havoc on a woman's body, leaving behind a sagging belly and often months and sometimes even years after giving birth to twins. And maybe when you've heard you're having twins, your first thought was, oh, I'm never going to have a flat stomach again. Thankfully, this does not have to be the case. Today we're here with Expert Julie Tupper to talk about how expecting twin moms can avoid the dreaded mummy tummy. And how moms of twins of any age can help repair their belly. This is twin talks. The ultrasound shows your babies to be healthy. What did you say babies? You're huge. Are you having twins? Are they natural? Which one do you like? Better wins? Ha my neighbors cousins, brothers uncles have twins. So can they read each other's minds? How do you tell them apart? Twins, you got a two for one twins run in your family. Double travel, you're not having any more. You just you're not Octomom. If you're pregnant with twins, or you're an experienced twin parent, odds are you've heard it all before. Now it's time to hear from the experts. This is twin talks, parenting times two. Welcome to twin Talks. My name is Christine Sirpa. Show that I'm your host, I do have to say that I was one of those women who was very freaked out at the thought of carrying twins. And I thought, oh my gosh, I'm never gonna be able to fit into my regular clothes again. So I am incredibly thankful that I found Julie's site. And I learned a lot about diastasis recti. And how having twins doesn't have to be a death sentence to having that that girlish figure. So I was, you know, just really satisfied with the results. You know, and after having twins, I went on to have another Singleton. So we'll go more in just a bit. And I'll introduce you to our guests for today's discussion. So now if you haven't already, be sure to visit our website and new mommy media.com And subscribe to our weekly newsletter, which keeps you updated on all the episodes we release each week. And another great way to stay updated is to hit that subscribe button on your podcast app. And if you're looking for a way to get even more involved with our show, then check out our membership club. It's called Mighty moms. And that's where we chat more about the topics discussed here on our show. And it's also an easy way to learn about a recording so you can join us live. Well, let's meet our guest today, Julie tumbler. She is a nurse, author, birth educator, and she has been treating diastasis recti for over 30 years with research and evidence based topler technique. And Julie trains medical and birth professionals all over the world. And her program has been translated into seven languages. So if you've listened to the previous episode, Julie shared how twin moms can have a better birth when they strengthen their pelvic floor and their abdominal wall. And so, Julie, I am so thrilled to have you back on the show. And I remember during my own twin pregnancy searching online for postpartum healing techniques. And, you know, I had I had no idea what caused a sagging belly, but I knew I didn't want to have anyone anything that looked remotely like that. After carrying twins. So I've even heard the term dialysis repti. I don't so I really don't even know how I managed to stumble onto your site. But can you give us a little refresher on how you came to be our expert in the field?

Julie Tupler 3:31
Well, first of all, thank you for having me back again to talk about postpartum recovery for twin moms. I love working with twin moms. So this is a treat for me to be here talking about it. I came to dialysis just by initially working with pregnant women. I was teaching an exercise class at a health club. And they said you're a nurse. Why don't you teach the prenatal class and nobody was doing prenatal at that point in time. So I had to sort of create it created on my own step by step. So when the women in the class found out, I was a nurse, they started picking my brain about labor. So then I became a childbirth educator, as well. And realize that childbirth education comes at the end of the pregnancy and only prepares your mind and you wouldn't run in a race and not train. Why would a pregnant woman not do the hardest thing she's going to do labor and not have that mind and body preparation. So in 19 So in 1990 I started maternal fitness. And the point of the program was to prepare women for the marathon of labor and recover rate. And in the, in the process of working with pregnant women, I discovered this diaster cysts and like, and I just saw it in its worst form, somebody got up and I saw this alien bolts coming out of their belly and I went is that that that was Gary and and she was wondering what it was too. So then that put me on the journey and and it was basically just defined but there was really no information on dialysis. So, you know, I had to sort of like figure out on my own what I needed to do to treat this and if I even could treat it, because the diaspora says that word dialysis means separation. And Rec die is the outermost abdominal muscles. So it's really the separation of the outermost abdominal muscles. So when the muscles separate, I'm going to give you an example here, I've got a plastic bag that so so basically, here's a muscle and here's a muscle. And this is the connective tissue that's been stretched out in between the muscles, okay, and what after years and years and years of trial and error, everything. What I discovered was that we needed to strengthen this stretched out and weakened connective tissue. So that it was strong enough to then hold the muscles in a close together position. So, so basically, that's, that's what I've been working on. For many years, as you said, over 30 years. And my aha moment was when one of my clients, we were doing the some exercises, some abdominal exercises, because I always felt that, that the most important thing for a pregnant woman for pushing was to have strong abdominals. So we were doing the exercises. And this woman said to me, I don't feel my muscles working. So I took a scarf. And I manually brought the muscles in the connective tissue and a closer together position. And bingo, she felt her muscles. So that was the start of what I did in my program to strengthen this weak and connective tissue. So it's about repositioning the muscles in the connective tissue, because if the muscles are separated four fingers apart or more, they move in a side to side direction. And that's why you can't feel them working. When they move into side to side. And if they're moving side to side, there's no way you're going to strengthen them. So the muscles and the connective tissue have to be put closer together. Alright, so that then they work in the right direction, front to back. So this front to back position is good for pushing. And it's good for strengthening the muscles. So this is the position that when the muscles are close together, that when you engage the innermost abdominal muscle, the transverse which is connected to the outermost rectus muscle, they move front to back. So So repositioning the muscles and connective tissue was sort of like wearing a cast. If you broke a bone. You want to continuously keep the two ends of the bone close together so that they fuse. Well, it's the same thing with the connective tissue, you want to continuously keep it in this narrow position, because that's the best position to do exercise. It's the best position to heal. All right,

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 9:00
well, yeah, so I'm just gonna, what I'm gonna say I'm gonna take a break and dive into too deep. And we come back, we're gonna go into the deep dive of really what what the diathesis wreck die is and how we can like use mentioned how we can check for that

so today, we're talking with diastasis recti. Expert, Julie topler, about what twin moms can do during a pregnancy to strengthen their their abdominal space and their pelvic floor and how they can help speed the healing during postpartum recovery period. So let's, let's dive in. I know Julie, you've got a lot of really, really great material that you've been telling us and I'm like, Oh my gosh, there's there's so much to say it's overwhelming. So, so, so you mentioned diathesis wreck tie, and it's the separation of the rectal abdominus All and, and and um, you know, I think you're I know you're kind of describing what it looks like with your hands but like, and you describe this alien bump and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I mean, I like that. I've, you know, I've seen pictures of like, and we see like, baby's feet on the wall, does it look like you know, like bumps or bulges? Or you know, like, what does it usually look like? We know when like a twin? Like, how would? How would twin moms go? Oh, yeah, I've got diastasis recti? How would they even know what it looks like?

Julie Tupler 10:35
Okay, well, that alien bolts that I'm talking about looks like a half football. It's like a domain of the abdominals. Alright, and that is the sign of a very severe dialysis is if you have an umbilical hernia, your belly buttons like out that's a side effect of dialysis is also an assign of a large dialysis. So and checking for a dialysis is not a exact science. All right, but there's a few things that you can do. And when you're checking for dialysis, you're checking for two things, you're checking the distance between the separated muscles, and you're checking the condition of the connective tissue. So when I say I'm checking the condition of the connective tissue, what I mean is the strength of the connective tissue, the deeper my finger goes, that shows me it's really weak. So so the stronger it is, the less it goes down. So that is

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 11:38
your finger. Because so you're I think you're saying like when you you can feel a like a ridge, I think I've heard that before you kind of feel almost like a ridge on your

Julie Tupler 11:46
game? Well, well, well, when you're checking for the distance. Okay, what we first do is we have them come up. And if you see that domain, then what we do is we check on each side of the belly button, we check halfway between the sternum and the belly button above the belly button, and halfway between the belly button and the pubic bone, below the belly button. So we're, we're if we see, if somebody has an umbilical hernia, or they have that domain, we check on each side, I do not have the clients lift their head, I put like all my fingers in. All right, and then now, when I'm coming to the client with my fingers go into the belly, the first thing that they do is tighten their muscles. When they tighten the muscles, the muscles come closer together. Alright, so the first thing that you have to do when you're checking for a diastasis is relax the muscles, because when you relax them, then they go to their largest where they are naturally. Then so you put the fingers in, and then you tell them to close their eyes, relax the muscles close their eyes, and think of bringing the belly button towards their backs to their spine. All right or towards the floor. And what

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 13:08
happens is Yeah, right, yes.

Julie Tupler 13:11
This is lying down with their knees bent. Okay, and what happens is, when they do that, you will feel the ridges of the muscle come closer together. Okay? So then, then they relax it and you follow it out because you want to check it at its largest, not at its smallest, because when they engage the muscles, the muscles come closer together. So we want to feel that ridge. And then as they relax the muscles, we want to follow it out to see where it is at its largest. That's why we check on each side of the belly button. Okay, with the with the large diathesis. Or if we if they don't have any of those things, I will put all 10 fingers and have them relax the muscles and then tighten, feel the ridges of the muscles and then follow it out to where it is. So so when people check when they lift the head and the shoulders, you're checking it at its smallest because the muscles come really they go forward but they come closest together. Okay, so we don't want to check it at its smallest. We want to check it at its largest. Okay, does that make sense? So that's how you check the distance. And then you check the condition with your finger. So if these lines on my fingers, so if this if it's below this line, this first line on my finger or below it's shallow. So this is getting up to medium and then if it goes down further, it's like deep. Okay, so what I think is even best, though, instead of checking diathesis is checking the circumference of the body, right under the breast at the waist and over the belly. Because then you can track that because as the digestive system smaller, the circumference gets smaller. So that's really a more accurate way to, to see that the diathesis is getting smaller and

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 15:12
nice. Okay, so you mentioned like three separate measurement points you said so like, like underneath the beneath the

Julie Tupler 15:17
breast, breast, and then and then over the belly button.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 15:22
Okay.

Julie Tupler 15:24
Okay with the abdominal muscles relaxed, with relaxed.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 15:27
Okay, so then so this is a way to try and like so someone's in, let's say three months postpartum. And I mean, we all know there's there's still a lot of stuff going on in recovery, but then you can see okay, is this is my is my waist going down? Not just at one single point. But is it those those three points? Is it you know, is it changing and going down? Okay?

know, it's, it's interesting, I think that's good news to look at, you know, we I mean, there's, there's so many different data points. So yeah, like, you know, your waist is just one, you know, one data point. And so I'm sure, you know, people could say, oh, well, my waist is I'm, you know, three inches back to my pre pregnancy weight or something like that. But But does that really mean that may not indicate whether they have diathesis? At all? I could say, oh, well, I think I'm okay. But I think you're saying you could still you could still be? No, they

Julie Tupler 16:27
should. They should they should definitely check themselves to see. Because if it's connective tissue there, it's a different feeling than if there's muscle there. Okay, yeah.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 16:38
And it sounds like this. And this would work for women of all sizes, too. So you know, if I mean, if you have, you know, let's just say greater what mass of body fat or if you know, you're in the process of losing the post baby weight. So it's this works for women of all sizes, I hope. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. No, that's, that's good. Because I think it's, it is something that you can do on your own or,

Julie Tupler 17:06
like, well, yes, my, my Yes, thank you for asking that. Because my program, which is research and evidence based. And in terms of the evidence with 372 women that did my program that did all four steps of the program, what we found is that in six weeks, they can make the dialysis 55% smaller. So my program progresses over 18 weeks now. I never ever say you're going to close your dialysis and 18 weeks, it's definitely going to be better, okay. But depending upon how long it takes depends upon the size of your dialysis, the, you know, the condition of your connective tissue, and your commitment to doing all four steps of the program. So support is really important. So in my program, I have an online support program, which progresses over 18 weeks, but the best thing about it is that there's no termination date. Okay, you can use it during the pregnancy after the pay as long as you need it. You can use it. And there's weekly videos, tips. And then I do weekly live webinars to talk about different aspects of the program, and also, to answer questions. And if you can't make it to the live webinar, you can email your questions in that morning, and I will answer it on the webinar. And the webinars are all recorded and they can listen to it. So, you know, yes, you can do the program on your own, but it always helps to have support. So that's why I do that on a weekly basis. And my program is four steps. It's the repositioning of the muscles and the connective tissue, strengthening the muscles and connective tissue. With my toddler technique exercises, there's two seated and then there's one backline one which has started and weak for the program. So it's repositioning the exercises, using your transverse muscle. Having that be your best friend with activities of daily living. So developing awareness of this innermost muscle to prevent stretching of the connective tissue because our goal is to strengthen it and getting up and down correctly. We want you to get up and down correctly from seated to standing standing to seated seated to backline and backline. Up in week six of the program. We teach a Diocese's safe workout, which is basically you know, the whole point of that is to maintain the gains that you've made with making your diocese smaller in the first six weeks to come. continue to make it smaller if you haven't closed it. And to keep it closed, because you have a weak spot in your connective tissue at your belly button, if you start doing wrong exercises and getting up and down incorrectly and all that, you can open it up again. So it's important to do this diet stasis safe workout. And what that is, is basically, you're using your abdominals with every repetition of every exercise that you do. So if I'm doing if I'm doing a military press, okay, I'm going to start with stabilizing bringing my ribs and bringing my transverse in, and then using my transverse squeezing, engaging the transverse on the work part of the exercise. Okay, so all the power comes from your now strength and core. So basically, that's the program people can do it on their own, we have a together tummy video, we have the splints, you know, to where to approximate, we have a, a guide book, which is the Cliff Notes of it. And the Cliff Notes, it gives the four steps and everything like that, and you can put your information in there and keep it in there. So So yes, you can do the program on your own, if you want to, you know, do it, you know, have private sessions that's available as well.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 21:26
Oh, yeah. So you know, okay, so I know we're like, running out there, we're gonna take a break. And when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more about the get the program and some of the practicalities of that.

Welcome back to Twin talks. Before the break, we were talking with Julie topler, of the topre technique and learning how to check for separation of the abdominal wall and some of the key elements of the program. And now, let's see if we can get maybe like a sneak peek of what you can do to fix that separation. So So Jill, I'm just wondering, so once once said, you know, we have a twin mom, she knows she's got this operation, and she wants to work on it. Can you give us maybe an idea, just maybe like a, I don't have like a demonstration of maybe one of the different exercises that you might recommend? I know you'd mentioned there are different stages. And I think the first one you said was reposition was that repositioning?

Julie Tupler 22:28
The first one was what was it?

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 22:30
Was it a stage repositioning? Was that okay? Well, no, that's

Julie Tupler 22:33
just the repositioning is just wearing the splint to the muscles, but with the exit, but with the exercises. When you're feeding the baby, and you're we have a seated exercise, this is a great time to do the exercises. Alright, so for the practicality of it. Now, during pregnancy when you're walking around the baby's moving side to side, so they are familiar and love that side to side movement. So if you're holding the baby like this, alright, so the baby's horizontal, all right, feeding, right and you do the exercises. That's that side to side movement, and the babies love it good for you good for the baby. So that's a great time to do the seated contracting exercise is when you're feeding the baby. Okay,

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 23:25
and see, I'm sorry, what is the exactly this the seated contracting exercise

Julie Tupler 23:29
maybe. So the most important muscle in your body is the transverse muscle. Okay, this is the innermost abdominal muscle that attaches on each side of your spine and then comes in front and goes on top, it goes behind that outermost muscle, and on the bottom, it goes in front. So it's really connected. And the action of the muscle is forwards and backwards if the muscles are close together, okay? So, so when you bring this muscle that goes forwards and backwards back to the spine that brings that wreck die back with it. So it's shortening it, okay. So every time you do that, it's shortening it so. So basically, the exercise is you have to be in the correct posture, shoulders lined up with hips, hips lined up with knees, all right, because if you're not in the correct posture, then it makes it more difficult to use this transverse muscle. So and, and it's really important to have an awareness of this muscle and to use it with every move you make, and with every breath you take, because you use your abdominals with every move you make and with every breath you take, so we start all the exercises out with a belly breath. All right. And and, and when we exhale, we think about bringing that transverse muscle back towards the spine. Okay, which most people don't do when they breathe. So this is something that we sort of add on when people are breathing, to use that transverse. So if this were my back, and this is my transverse muscle that wraps around my whole body and the action is forwards and backwards, we're wearing our splint to have the muscles in the right position. Alright, we're have the right posture. So we start with a belly breath, we expand the belly and it goes forward. Now it goes forward passively. So there's no force on the connective tissue, we exhale. And we think about bringing the belly button to the inner spine, we visualize the ribs coming close together, this is important. And then, and then this is the elevator, and we count to 30, we count out loud, holding it there at the inner spine, which I call fifth floor. And then after we do 30 Of these, then we close our eyes and we do a little squeeze, a little isometric squeeze, thinking about the abdominals going from the inner fifth floor to the outer sixth floor, it's a squeeze. And after they squeezed, they stay there. So that's the elevator. The contracting is we again, expand the belly to first floor, which is a relaxed position, we go to we in week one, we go to third floor, we bring the ribs in. And then we pretend there's Velcro here we Squeeze and hold, and little release, squeezing the whole little release. And we count out loud, we say squeezing, hold one, and a little release. So and then when you do this, you should be feeling this in your back. So we do 100 of these little squeezes, takes about two and a half minutes. If you count in English, if you count German, it takes longer. I had a client tell me that, that she counted in German, and it took her more than two and a half minutes. I said well count in English, right? It's the numbers in in German take longer. Anyway. So so. So that's so these are these little exercises. So again, the four steps being wearing the splint, right, so like as to keep the muscles and the connective tissue in the right position, doing the exercises. Okay, so with the elevator, you know, we're doing the elevators we're doing 10 a day, with the contracting, we're doing five a day, but but then the contracting, you know, gets we do more, or every three weeks, we up the numbers, okay? And the contracting goes. First week, it's we do from third floor, we expand to first go to third, and then third to fifth. And then in week two, we do make the movement a little smaller, fourth, to fifth. And then in week three, and then for the rest of your life. We're going from fifth to sixth, like we did in the elevator, that isometric squeeze. All right. So it's all lined up in this little guide book. Alright. So basically, and then having an awareness when I say I engage my transverse. Now, why do we want to do that? Because if I'm using my abdominals with every move that I make, and every breath that I take, alright, if you put your hands on your belly and you stand up, you're going to feel the abdominals moving forward. Okay. Now, if the abdominals move forward, it brings the connective tissue with it and stretches it. And we don't want to stretch the connective tissue because the whole point of the program is strengthening that connective tissue. So before I stand up, I bring my belly to the spine. Okay, hold it there before I stand up. So then there's no stretching of the connective tissue, okay? We're really working the muscle and protecting it from getting stretched. Okay, so having that awareness, when you sneeze, when you cough, when you stand up, when you go to the bathroom, it's in. Okay, my

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 29:11
awareness. I think that's a huge component of you know, I mean, any point you pick up the bit when you pick,

Julie Tupler 29:17
yes, when you pick up the baby, it's in. Alright, because we do not want to stretch the connective tissue. If we're if we're, if our whole point is strengthening the muscles and the connective tissue, if you continue to stretch it, then you're not going to get good results. So you have to have that awareness about that muscle.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 29:36
Yeah. Oh, my gosh, no, I think I think that's probably one of the added benefits of, you know, just being able to think to think about posture when you're breastfeeding posture. You know, and when are you engaging that that muscle when you're like you said, when you're carrying the baby around when you're and for twins, when we're carrying, you know, two infant carriers. I mean, that. It's like, Okay, it's time you're

Julie Tupler 29:59
trans First naturally, but definitely has to be in when you're doing that.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 30:04
That's I mean, that gets heavy, I can say that, for sure. Oh my gosh. So So now I want to know, you know, I think I've heard I think I know the answer, but but I want to make sure I it's correct. Um, so, you know, lots of times we talked about postpartum period being like, immediately after, you know, having the babies and, you know, we think about, you know, like, the few months that the fourth trimester so to speak, right of, but, but I think, I mean, do do the moms have to start the program then or, or is there a nice?

Julie Tupler 30:42
That's, that's a great question. Okay. And, and part of it is, if you've not with twins, percentage wise, many of the twins moms have had a C section. Okay, so with the C section, all right, that scar has to heal first, okay. Because if I'm, if I if I, if this is, these are my abdominals, and this is the scar down here, okay? If I were the splint, it's going to put stress because I'm doing this on the scar. So we want to make sure it heals first. So if somebody wanted to do the exercises, they initially afterwards, they could hold the scarf higher up, so that they don't interfere once the scar has healed, then to close the dialysis, we're going to want to do scar mobilization. Okay, okay. So what's the point of scar mobilization, the point of scar mobilization is to and what happens is, when you have surgery, the layers of connective tissue get stuck together like this, okay, you can see this with the plastic bag. Okay, so if I'm trying to reposition the muscles and connective tissue, it makes it hard for me to reposition it here because of this stuckness. So once I unstick it, that's what the point of scar mobilization, I can reposition it much better. So with SCAR mobilization, you know, there's a whole like a whole, you know, we teach that, you know, in the program as well, that's one of my lectures that I talk about in my Friday webinars is the scar mobilization. So, but you can really start the program at any time, it's just if you've had a C section, you know, you want to hold a scarf, if you've had a vaginal birth, you can start wearing the splints right away. Okay.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 32:35
And then I mean, how about on on the end of the far out, so let's say there's moms that have got, you know, other issues in you know, that they're dealing with, you know, for further postpartum care. And I mean, you know, even just getting sleep, you know, those few those few months afterwards. And so let's say, I mean, I know of a lot of moms who, maybe they haven't heard about diastasis, recti. And they're just starting, you know, like, four months out, they're like, oh, you know, I think my belly should have contracted more, you know, what's going on? And they're just starting that educational process kind of later on? Can they still benefit, you know, from dancing?

Julie Tupler 33:13
Absolutely. That's a question that I get all the time. Is it too late? Okay, now, if men are doing the program, okay. It's never too late because men have never been pregnant. So pregnancy is really not the issue because you can get a diagnosis from abdominal surgery from doing incorrect exercises from a car accident, met, it's pregnancy is not the only cause of dialysis now, it is too late. When when the when you become rounded over with the big belly. If you are rounded over it, then it's too late. But I have people in their 60s 70s and 80s that are doing the program. So it's really, you can really start at any point in time.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 34:00
Oh, that's, that's great news. So it's not Yeah, so even if it's been maybe even a year, and you know, and I know a lot of moms that are saying, Gosh, you know, I don't you know, it's been a year and you know, I lost weight, but I still got this belly, so they can still do it. There's still any any

Julie Tupler 34:17
anytime I have, as I said, I have women, you know, menopausal women that are doing the program? Yeah. Okay. So I just I just can't I can't work with the people that I tried actually working with a doctor on the Upper East Side with a client that was rounded over and it didn't work, she couldn't even hold the splint or wear the splint and you need to do that to reposition the muscles and, and if you're not doing that, it makes it

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 34:47
you know, it's just too late. Yeah, yeah. And then and then there might be I guess, time where they say, okay, you know, we've done a lot of work we've closed it in, but there might be cases where they still need some type of surgical correction as well. So,

Julie Tupler 35:00
well, well, well, well, you know, my feeling is if they, you know, for the skin, because you can close the diathesis. But sometimes people don't like that skin, because when they're doing a tummy tuck, they cut you from hipbone to hipbone lift everything lifted, lifted up, and then they stitch. They stitch the connective tissue, sometimes they put mesh in it, which sometimes escapes, okay? So, and this is stitching, and stitching can come undone if you don't use your abdominals correctly after abdominal surgery. So that's why we have that pre and post surgery program so that people know how to use their abdominal muscles in the recovery process, so that they don't undo the stitches so they can maintain the integrity of the sutures. So if they if they, you know, if they want to, you know, bring their muscles together and have a flat belly, you know, if they hang in there, they can do that with my program. However, the skin, you know, the skin might be an issue for them. So if they have an issue with the skin, they still need to do my program so that anything that stitch can stay stitched, because it's up to them, it's up to them. Like if they stand up, you know, after abdominal surgery, they say to you Don't lift anything over five pounds. So I had abdominal surgery in January of last year. And my doctor after surgery said Don't lift anything over five pounds. Okay, so I said, Well, I said when I go from a seated to a standing position, I'm lifting 135 pounds. I said, but you don't have to worry. I said, because I'm going to engage my abdominals before I stand up. So I can maintain the integrity of the sutures. And he sort of looked at me like, like, Who is this person?

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 37:07
Oh, my sofa. Yeah, this is really no, this is really great to know that I didn't even realize that even for those who have had a tummy tuck, they need to maintain them. One

Julie Tupler 37:18
of my trainers in New York City's of physical therapists, she had the tummy tuck, and it came undone. I see many people that because it's just they're just stitching and continuous forward, forth. It's just like, if I if I end the hem on my skirt, if I continue to put my heel in it, it's going to come undone. Okay, so if you so if you continue to put force like getting up like jackknifing or standing up, that's your whole that that's the whole body, like your whole body weight force on those stitches. Okay, so, so, so yeah, it's very important to have that awareness of how to use your abdominals after surgery.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 37:57
No, that's great. Well, I have to say we're running out of time. And I mean, I'm glad to hear that this is something that people from you know, whether you had a vaginal birth, or if you've had a Syrian, you know, suction or if you've had a tummy tuck, or you know, you're just starting it, you can benefit from you know, having, you know, practicing the techniques in Julie's program, so

I just want to I wish we could talk more, but I want to say thank you so much to Julie for sharing

Julie Tupler 38:33
thank thank you for letting them thank you for letting me share I you know, diaster CES is, you know, is something that the medical community has ignored. And, and that's why I like to speak about it because it's something that, you know, people go to their health care providers with backaches and all the side effects of diagnosis, and they're never checked for it. So that's why thank you. Thank you. Thank you for letting me talk about it today. I appreciate it.

Christine Stewart-Fitzgerald 39:01
We are thrilled to have you. And for everyone here, you can get more information about healing diastasis recti. on Julie's website at its diaster sis rehab.com. We will have it posted and linked on the site. And be sure to check out new mommy media.com where we have all of our podcast episodes, plus videos and more. Well, that wraps up our show for today. Thanks for listening. If you like twin talks as much as we do, please consider checking out the amazing businesses that sponsor our show week after week. And we'd also love for you to tell other twin parents about this resource, which of course is absolutely free. So if you want to check out some of the other podcasts we produce, such as newbies, parents savers, a boot group and preggy pals, then visit our website at New mommy media.com. Thanks for listening to twin talks parenting times two.

Disclaimer 39:54
This has been a new mommy media production information in my theory all contained in this episode are presented for educational purposes only. Statements and opinions expressed in this episode are not necessarily those of new mommy media and should not be considered facts. Will such information and materials are believed to be accurate. It is not intended to replace or substitute for professional medical advice or care and should not be used for diagnosing or treating healthcare problem or disease, or prescribing any medication. If your questions or concerns regarding your physical or mental health, or the health of your baby, please seek assistance from a qualified health care provider

Transcribed by https://otter.ai