The Postpartum Month, Chinese style
I have yet to find someone who actually follows through on "the rules". I gave birth in late November so I spent my postpartum month in cold winter weather. It is easy to go several days without washing my hair in such weather. The longest I went was a week. I can't imagine what it will be like to not washing my hair for a month in the summer time. For shower I can only go three days without. I did much better not touching cold water nor drinking cold water. Again I can't imagine the same in the summer. I hardly went anywhere for a whole month besides going to the pediatrician with my baby. It was a cold day that day and I did expose myself to some cold breeze, though briefly. I did some vacuuming. The care-taker we hired to help during the postpartum month warned me that it's the same as lifting heavy object. I broke at least half of "the rules". I guess I'll be embracing all the pains and diseases associated with aging old women.
I am not stating this lightly nor am I disputing the legitimacy of "the rules". I am only saying it is very hard to follow them through. As a friend explained to me, during pregnancy our bone structure get enlarged and the first month after giving birth when everything falls back in place it is better not to expose to any kind of cold so as not to trap cold in your joints. Those that believe in "Chi" healing regard trapping cold inside our body as the cause to many discomforts we may feel. This "Chi"-based theory makes "the rules" not entirely enigmatic and I wouldn't dare challenge it, especially not when my health is concerned, but I just cannot imagine myself not taking a shower for a whole month.
Aside from following "the rules", during the postpartum month, the new mom is expected to eat very well, There is less consensus, though, as to what you should eat. Nutritionists advocate balanced meals. Take anything as long as you make sure you have taken in enough of the importance nutrients. Use your common sense and stay off high-fat, high-sugar, calorie-abundant food. But if you take Chinese medicinal herbs to help recover better, there are a lot more things you are not suppose to eat. Those are food that are "cold" in nature. This concept that a kind of food can be "cold" or "warm" by nature, not in terms of the way it is prepared, is hard to grasp. Just to be on the safe side, we hired a care-taker who knows about Chinese medicine to cook for us for one month. Her recipes are Taiwanese style. Under her care, I had pig-kidney sautéed with ginger for breakfast everyday. I called it quits after the seventh day and I don't want to see another piece of pig-kidney for a long time. There was also lots of fish, fish soup, steamed fish, pan-fried fish. Fish is a good source of protein and fish soup supposedly stimulates breast milk. Of course, you have to have chicken soup, with whole chicken, cut in pieces, browned with ginger in pure black sesame oil and slow cooked with plenty of rice wine. On weekends, when our care-taker was off, I cooked for myself pig's feet and ginger slow cooked in sweet vinegar. This recipe was given to me by a friend of Cantonese origin.
Ginger is definitely the favor in all the postpartum recipes for it is very "warm" in nature. Ginger does make one sweat. You can feel the effect of ginger next time if you have a cold and brew yourself a cup of ginger soup with brown sugar. It will warm you right up. During the postpartum month, taking a lot of ginger helps expel cold from our body. The "coldness" of food is harder to see. Watermelon is supposed to be very "cold". Napa cabbage is "cold" too. But Apple is okay, so is Chinese broccoli. Beans are okay but tomatoes are not, neither are citrus fruits. During the month when the care-taker cooked for us, I craved for orange juice and I gobbled them down on weekends when the care-taker was not around. Not taking "cold" food supposedly protects our internals from "coldness" thus from potential diseases.
The postpartum "rules" and recipes entail the Chinese way, the introverted, self-preserving way. Lots of don'ts. Taking time to distill the essence out of food when cooking. The intake of food is an act of balancing, carefully separating the "cold" food from the "warm" and supplementing what your body needs at a given time. It can be a life long practice if one would take the time to appreciate the finesse of it. When I was just out of the hospital, totally exhausted from giving birth, I really did appreciate the don'ts and the food. Gradually, I got my strength back at the same time my patience grew thin. After about two weeks, the don'ts became hindrance and all the "warm" food was too much for my ulcerous stomach to take. I was ready to go back to my "modern" way. Too bad, though the long term effect remains to be seen, I lost a chance to prove some old ways do work.