Although I’m not ready to blog about all of it yet, over the past week I’ve become extremely disappointed in the diastasis recti bands we’ve been using during our Baby Belly Challenge. I started to notice problems as soon as I had to stop wearing the bands because of another belly button infection, and every day it has been something else.

I have never recommended that pregnant women wear the bands, but if you’re a mom and you’ve been wearing them I definitely recommend GRADUALLY weaning yourself off. At this point I still believe they are safe and effective to wear while doing the diastasis exercises, but other than that, until I have sufficiently looked into all of this I’m recommending that everyone either leave the splints off, or wear them for only a very limited amount of time during the day.

I was a firm believer in this product for years, so this has all been pretty upsetting for me, but this is another reason I’m so thankful for this Challenge. If I hadn’t created the Challenge there’s no way I would’ve been disciplined enough to wear the splint around the clock like we’re instructed to do, and I therefore never would’ve discovered how problematic it actually can be.

I’ve been so happy to hear from several people that they’ve experienced positive results over the past 9 weeks even without wearing the splint. This is great news, especially right now.

3/22/12 UPDATE:  Please note that I am no longer recommending wearing any type of splint, including splinting during the exercises.  Depending on your diastasis and the exercises you’re doing to strengthen the abdominals postpartum, it may be necessary to use your hands to press the separated muscles closer together during your exercise, but no band should be worn.  Everyone’s goal should be to strengthen the abdominals (starting with the transverse) so that we’re able to contract our muscles to close the separation, rather than relying on a product to do this for us.