by Maggie Downs posted in Life

I?ll be honest. Even before I got pregnant and gave birth, I wasn?t working with great abs. My stomach was a gentle slope, not a taut, gleaming ice cube tray.
But now that I?ve had a baby that gentle ski slope is far gone, replaced by a jiggly, jelly mountain. It?s like I?m smuggling a travel neck pillow in the front of my pants. I am constantly sucking in, afraid someone will think I?m pregnant again.
What is this pooch, and why won't it go away"
This post-birth belly bulge is actually fairly common, and according to this article from NPR, it's possible to make it disappear in just 10 minutes a day with one efficient exercise.
But before we get to the dirty details of that exercise, first let's look at the problem.  This is a medical issue called diastasis recti, which is a separation of the abdominal muscles, and it's experienced by about a third of moms a year after giving birth.

During pregnancy, a gap opens between the abdominal muscles, the NPR article explains. Sometimes the gap closes on its own, but other times it remains open, creating a space that allows the organs and tissue to bulge. In order to flatten the area, women must realign those abdominal muscles with exercise.
The problem isn?t just one of aesthetics -- although I am self-conscious about my fleshy new belly. (You?ll notice there aren?t any photos of my jiggly stomach in this post. That?s because I?ve tracked them all down and had them burned.)
The bigger issu...