Rare diseases · Sign or symptom
Diastasis recti
Gap between large left and right abdominal muscles
HP:0001540
What it means
A separation of the rectus abdominis muscle into right and left halves (which are normally joined at the midline at the linea alba).
Diastasis recti looks like a ridge, which runs down the middle of the abdomen and increases with muscle straining. Diastasis recti is not uncommon in pregnant women and is common and normal in newborns.
Rare diseases that can present with this16
Common30–79%
8- 3MC syndrome
- Craniofrontonasal dysplasia-Poland anomaly syndrome
- Isolated sedoheptulokinase deficiency
- Kagami-Ogata syndrome
- Kagami-Ogata syndrome due to maternal 14q32.2 hypermethylation
- Kagami-Ogata syndrome due to maternal 14q32.2 microdeletion
- Kagami-Ogata syndrome due to paternal uniparental disomy of chromosome 14
- SCARF syndrome
Sometimes5–29%
7The range is how often this sign appears among people diagnosed with each disease — it is not a probability of having any of them. Many of these signs also occur in common, non-rare conditions, and Orphanet separately records 1 disease where this sign is specifically absent. A sign on this page is a conversation to have with a clinician, not a conclusion.
Part of the broader category
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Start free with EleplanThis page uses the Human Phenotype Ontology (2026-06-23) — Human Phenotype Ontology Consortium, hpo.jax.org. Disease associations from Orphanet (INSERM), CC BY 4.0. Content is educational and is not medical advice.