Why Your Mummy Tummy Won’t Go Away (And What Actually Works)

Have you been doing crunches, planks, and every ab workout you can think of — and you still feel like you’re left with that mummy tummy after birth?

You’re not alone. And here’s the part that surprises most moms: it’s probably not because you aren’t working out hard enough.

One of the biggest mistakes I see postpartum moms making is trying to strengthen their core from the outside in. It feels like it should work. It’s what we’ve all been taught. But after pregnancy, it’s the wrong order — and it’s exactly why all that effort isn’t paying off.

Why Won’t My Mummy Tummy Go Away?

Think about how most people approach their core. They focus on the visible muscles — the six-pack, the obliques, the outer abdominals. Those are the muscles you can see in the mirror, so those are the muscles you train.

But after pregnancy, the muscles you can see aren’t the foundation. The real foundation is your deep core system, and that’s what needs your attention first.

If that deeper system isn’t doing its job, no amount of crunching is going to give you the flat, strong middle you’re working toward.

Your Deep Core Is More Than Just Your Abs

So what actually makes up your deep core?

Your deep core system is a team of muscles that work together like a built-in support system:

• Your diaphragm (your breathing muscle) at the top
• Your pelvic floor at the bottom
• Your deepest abdominal muscles wrapping around your midsection

These muscles are designed to coordinate — to pressurize and support your trunk from the inside. During pregnancy, every one of them stretches, adapts, and changes to make room for your growing baby. That’s exactly what they’re supposed to do.

The problem shows up after delivery.

Why Crunches and Planks Aren’t Flattening Your Belly

If you don’t reconnect and retrain that deep core system after birth, your body finds a workaround. It compensates by gripping and overworking the more external, outer muscles instead.

That compensation is why you can do a hundred ab exercises, plank and crunch all you want, and still feel like your belly is bulging out. It pushes forward. It never quite gets as flat — or as strong — as you want it to be.

Building From the Outside In Is the Wrong Order

Here’s the analogy I come back to again and again: trying to fix a mummy tummy with outer-ab work is like building a house and painting the walls before the foundation is finished.

You can pick beautiful paint. You can do a careful job. But if the foundation underneath isn’t stable, the whole structure is working against you. You have to get the foundation solid first — and then everything you build on top of it actually holds.

Your outer abdominals aren’t the enemy. They just can’t do their job well when the deep system beneath them is disconnected.

Retraining Your Core From the Inside Out

The good news is that there is absolutely something you can do about this.

At pelvic floor physical therapy, we help you reconnect with that deepest system and retrain it so it works the way it was designed to — from the inside out. That means teaching your diaphragm, pelvic floor, and deep abdominals to coordinate again: to breathe, brace, and release together instead of relying on your outer muscles to grip and hold.

When you’ve been working this hard and you’re not seeing the results you expect, it may be time to reconsider how you’re working out. The goal isn’t to do more of what you think your body needs. It’s to start doing what we know your body actually needs.

Common Does Not Mean Normal

A lingering mummy tummy is incredibly common after pregnancy. But common does not mean normal — and it definitely doesn’t mean it’s something you’re stuck with.

A belly that bulges or pushes out, a core that feels weak or disconnected, tension that keeps building in the outer muscles no matter how much you train them — these are all signs that your deep core system needs support, not signs that you’ve failed at your workouts.

When your foundation is strong, everything works better. You feel lighter. You feel more supported. And you finally get the results you’ve been expecting out of the workouts you’re already doing.

How Pelvic Floor Physical Therapy Can Help

Your deep core system is a lot more than just your abs, and reconnecting with it is a skill — one you can absolutely relearn with the right guidance.

In pelvic floor physical therapy, we assess how your deep core and pelvic floor are functioning, find where the connection broke down, and build a plan to retrain it step by step. From there, the outer-muscle work you’ve been doing finally has a stable foundation to build on.

If you’ve been fighting your mummy tummy and feel like nothing is working, you don’t need to push harder. You need to build from the inside out — and we’d love to help you do exactly that.

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