16 topics

Nourishment and Traditions

The first 40 days across cultures, warming foods, and food as care.

• Why postpartum food is differentAfter birth you are healing, bleeding, and often making milk. Food for that is warm, soft, rich, and easy. Here is why.
• Warming foods and why so many cultures insist on themWarming foods are cooked, warm, spiced, and easy to digest. Most postpartum traditions insist on them. Here is what they say and what is known.
• Bone brothBone broth is simmered bones, water, and time. Nearly every postpartum tradition serves a version of it. Here is what it offers.
• Blood-building foods after birthYou lose blood at birth, and many mothers run low on iron for weeks. Every tradition has blood-building foods. Here is where they meet the science.
• Eating for tissue healingA tear, an incision, or the wound inside the uterus all need protein, zinc, vitamin C, and fluids. Here is what that looks like on a plate.
• Hydration while breastfeedingNursing makes you very thirsty. Drink to thirst, keep water within reach, and know that more water does not mean more milk.
• Eating one-handed: real food you can holdYou will eat most meals with a baby in one arm. Here is real food that works that way, and how to set it up.
• Stocking the freezer before birthA freezer full of meals before birth is the prep task that pays off every day for six weeks. What to make, how much, and how to pack it.
• Zuo yuezi: sitting the monthZuo yuezi, sitting the month, is the Chinese tradition of 30 days of rest, warmth, and special foods after birth. Here is what it involves and why.
• La cuarentenaLa cuarentena is the Latin American forty days after birth: rest, warm food, a bound belly, and the women of the family close by.
• Ayurvedic postpartum careAyurveda calls the first 42 days the sacred window. Warm oil massage, kitchari, spiced ghee, and deep rest are its tools.
• Korean samchilil and miyeok-gukSamchilil is the Korean 21 days after birth, and miyeok-guk, seaweed soup, is its food. Here is what the tradition does and why.
• Postpartum traditions around the worldPostpartum traditions around the world share a shape: rest, warmth, food, help, and a closing. Here is a tour.
• Being fed: why food is careBeing fed after birth is not a luxury. It is how every culture says: you are held. Here is why it matters more than it seems.
• Belly bindingBelly binding wraps the belly after birth for support and warmth. Many traditions do it. Here is what it offers and what to watch.
• Herbs and teas postpartum: what's traditional, what's knownRed raspberry leaf, nettle, sitz bath herbs, mother's milk tea. Here is what each is traditionally used for, and what is known.