Data of the demographic characteristics of the 138 women included age, height, weight, infant weight, and weeks during birth. Cesarean section accounted for 69.8% of the births, which was greater than that of vaginal birth. Based on the assessment of RAD severity, there were 16, 66, and 56 women with mild, moderate, and severe RAD, respectively, among the 138 women (Table 1).
The RAD width was analyzed via continuous variables. Compared to before treatment, the width of RAD decreased from 4.58 ± 1.74 cm to 2.33 ± 0.90 cm after KT treatment with a statistically significant difference (t = 16.713; P < 0.001). The statistically significant difference was also observed in women with mild, moderate, and severe RAD compared to before and after treatment (Table 2). Before treatment, the rates of women with mild, moderate, and severe RAD were 11.6%, 47.8%, and 40.6%, respectively, whereas the rates after treatment for those with normal, mild, moderate, and severe RAD were 28.3%, 44.2%, 26.8%, and 0.7%, respectively. The Wilcoxon rank sum test results showed a statistically significant difference (Z = − 9.611; P < 0.001) (Table 2, Fig. 3).
The abdominal circumference measurements before and after KT treatment revealed a decrease from 82.60 ± 8.50 cm to 77.51 ± 7.90 cm at the umbilicus, from 75.37 ± 8.11 cm to 72.25 ± 7.40 cm above the umbilicus, and from 86.42 ± 7.21 cm to 83.35 ± 6.64 cm below the umbilicus, with statistically significant differences (P < 0.001). A statistically significant difference was observed in the longitudinal distance of the xiphoid to the umbilicus at the anterior abdomen, which decreased to 14.56 ± 2.11 cm compared to before treatment (16.17 ± 2.88 cm). However, no statistically significant difference was found in the distance from the umbilicus to the pubic symphysis before and after the intervention (Table 3, Fig. 5). Measurement data results from 38 women for the six consecutive treatments demonstrated that the RAD width and abdominal circumference showed a significant downward trend in the second treatment, while the distance from the xiphoid process to the umbilicus in the anterior abdomen revealed a downward trend after the third treatment, with no significant change in the distance from the umbilicus to the pubic symphysis (Fig. 4). Concurrently, the correlation analysis results of the abdominal dimension and anterior abdominal size revealed that all variables were positively correlated before and after treatment, indicating that KT treatment of the rectus abdominis had a positive synergistic effect on the abdominal circumference change, except for the umbilicus to the pubic symphysis (Table 4).
In the analysis of lumbosacral and coccygeal pain before and after treatment, the percentage of pain significantly decreased. Statistical differences in the chi-square test results were noted, which showed that KT treatment on RAD improved lumbosacral and coccygeal pain (Table 5).
To analyse the influencing factors affecting treatment outcomes, the RAD width was divided into two groups that is, ≥ 2 cm and < 2 cm, after treatment, and the differences in the postpartum intervention timing, age, weight gain during pregnancy, abdominal circumference, anterior abdominal longitudinal length, number of births, birthing method, and pre-treatment severity were analyzed. The results revealed that the severity (P ≤ 0.001) and longitudinal distance of the umbilicus to the pubic symphysis (P ≤ 0.008) were statistically different in the two groups. A stratified analysis of women with moderate severity affecting treatment outcomes demonstrated statistically significant differences between the two groups regarding abdominal circumference below the umbilicus (P = 0.039) and longitudinal distance of the xiphoid to the umbilicus (P = 0.029) (Table 6).
Spearman’s test was used to analyse the correlation between a reduced RAD and number of treatments, timing of postpartum interventions, age, weight gain during pregnancy, number and method of birth, abdominal circumference, and longitudinal distance of the anterior abdomen. The results revealed that the decrease in RAD was positively correlated with the number of treatments (P ≤ 0.001) and abdominal circumference below the umbilicus (P = 0.013) (Table 7).