Option 1
You could also solve it by adding a transparent border to the row (tr), like this
HTML
<table>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
</tr>
</table>
CSS
tr {
border-top: 12px solid transparent;
border-bottom: 12px solid transparent;
}
Works like a charm, although if you need regular borders, then this method will sadly not work.
Option 2
Since rows act as a way to group cells, the correct way to do this, would be to use
table {
border-collapse: inherit;
border-spacing: 0 10px;
}