Abdominal Separation Check & Wave Breath Exercise Towards the end of pregnancy, the two large muscle sheets covering the belly sometimes separate into two halves to accommodate the growing baby. The split occurs length-ways from your belly button down to the pubic bone. You might not have been aware of this happening, although it can feel uncomfortable: usually a stretching or 'splitting' sensation. So the pregnancy joke about splitting like a ripe watermelon isn't that far off the truth. It's more common in overweight women, and also when there's more than one baby. It's also more likely to happen in second and subsequent pregnancies. At your 6 or 8-week postnatal appointment, your caregiver should check this for you. It's also easy to do an abdominal separation check yourself following the instructions below and also demonstrated in the video Abdominal separation makes your tummy bulge and can lead to chronic back pain. So if your abs have parted company, do your best to zip them together again with exercises such as wave breath in Huggies Postnatal Yoga program.