This WWE star's abs were reportedly 'too tight' for natural labor

pulse

May 22, 2017 8:54 PM

Plenty of fit pregnant women have given birth with no issues, but is it really possible to have abs that are too tight for a vaginal delivery? Experts say no.

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WWE star

Bella had hoped to deliver Birdie without medical intervention, Nikki explained to E! News, but that didn’t go as planned. And, after 22 hours of labor, Nikki says Bella needed a cesarean section because her abs were too strong.

“She tried to go natural, and it was like eight or 10 hours into it, [she] had to get an epidural and then in the end had to get a C-section,” Nikki said. “Her abs were too tight!” she added. “Go figure. Leave it to the WWE Superstar, abs too tight!”

“There are no studies or evidence that say tight abs can increase the risk for a C-section,” says Christine Greves, M.D., a board-certified ob-gyn at the Winnie Palmer Hospital for Women and Babies.

Jessica Shepherd, M.D., an assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology and director of Minimally Invasive Gynecology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago, agrees. “Abdominal muscles don’t really have anything to do with the process of vaginal delivery,” she says. “If anything, they might make a C-section harder.”

A vaginal birth has more to do with a woman’s pelvic muscles and the bones of a woman’s pelvis, Shepherd explains. “The cervix has to dilate all the way, and the pelvis has to allow a change in configuration for the baby to pass through,” she says. “It’s a process of a variety of things, but the abdominal muscles being too tight would not be one of those.”

So, don’t stress out if you have tight abs and are planning to become pregnant sometime in the near future—it should have zero impact on your labor and delivery.

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