Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Exactly what Traditional Postnatal Confinement?


In Indonesia, tradition still reigns only, whereby Pregnancy and this informative article natal practices and taboos continue to be adhered to by a Malays, Indians and Chinese irrespective of their educational background. Most of the so named 'taboos' may sound ridiculous and no-one can give us a good explanation why this or that is done, but if you look at it closely, there is a of the most important logical reason behind together taboo which somehow have been lost after a while.

Confinement - Chinese style

In the old days, the month immediately when you have delivery is considered a time of great danger, of illness and feasible death to both moms and dads baby. This is because during the post partum period certain mother's physiological classification changes to a period of strongest Yin when her anatomy's at the weakest and finished traditional Chinese women has to follow a program that includes 15 well-defined cultural practices supposed to reduce this danger.

According to supply ancient Chinese text, women who follow the traditions right now are said to position 'doing the month' inside event the new mother and the dog baby are practically limited to their room. It is probably not from here that the definition of "confinement" is coined. Lawfully, the confinement period is thirty days culminating with a big feast called "full moon" party when visitors come bearing gifts for our baby.

The 15 cultural practices/taboos the woman must strictly adhere and then are:

1. Eat poultry everyday.

2. Eat 'heaty' meals.

3. Not to eat raw or not foods.

4. Not to wash her hair or body system.

5. Not to go outside the home

6. Not to adjust to a draft or in the wind.

7. Not to move about the house needlessly but stay in the room.

8. Not to arrive another's home.

9. Refrain from sexual intercourse for 100 longer.

10. Practice positive behaviour to stop becoming ill.

11. I don't read or cry.

12. Don't eat with other family members.

13. Not to insult the gods by losing incense.

14. Avoid an even better potentially disease causing object

15. Avoid contaminating household members with any fetal motion residue.

Can you determine what the reasons for the above practices?

The first 3 are fairly pretty simple. As the Chinese think that the body is very Yin, it is important to try to warm it up consuming 'heaty' food which has chicken. If you look at all the so called 'heaty' food many of them contain nutrients that are required to improve milk production, Help tissue repair and improve the general well being of mother. In the old days, the order at mealtimes are how the men eat first, connected to the children and lastly ladies. This means that most women don't get to eat a prudent diet and the only time there is to correct this imbalance is there to the confinement period.

The practice of not at all bathing and washing hair in the old days are understandable because in ancient China individuals have very long hair and it takes quite a long time to dry the go after washing. In addition, most of the outdated houses are draughty so you could catch a chill whether during confinement or not. Our mothers and grandmothers swear that if you bath during the confinement month you could have develop joint pains for that old age. The good news would be that the period for not bathing has been specifically reduced to 2 weeks. Who decreed this, no person knows! However, the bath water should be boiled and infused with water from boiled items. Somewhere over the many years someone introduced the tradition of bathing developing a whole concoction of herbs in the water such as serai, limau perut, daun kunyit and many others. This is probably from being exposed to local Malay customs.

Another tradition that isn't listed in the 15 practices is always that a newly delivered mother has not been allowed to touch water in the confinement month. This problem is ridiculous because:

1. You have got to practice good hand washing and personal hygiene to protect an infant.

2. After the delivery you will bleed for several days and if you do not wash, the blood will dry up and become a fantastic dinner location for germs which can lead to infection.

3. If you've been in labour for several hours and had a penile delivery, you will be sweaty and add approximately on more days within their sweat from eating 'heaty' recipes, nobody will be able to sit there with you.

The reason for being confined to the room and home is probably to prevent women from beginning to do housework or maybe even going out to the utmost fields. If the newly delivered mother burns all her energy with strenuous work that is certainly over tired, she lose the ability to produce sufficient milk because of their baby. Remember, in that old days all babies tend to be not exclusively breast fed. Also it takes about 6 - 8 over the following few for the body to go back to its pre-pregnant state and in addition the confinement is to make certain that the mother properly recovers from the strain of childbirth.

What about abstaining through sex for 100 hrs? This is probably because in those times there are no contraceptive devices provided that a woman becomes pregnant again with the 100 days she do not have a chance to recover from the strain of the present Pregnancy plus it's childbirth. Following delivery, there exists a raw area in with her womb where the placenta was attached. There is an unsafe for this area to become infected during sex. In fact, the modern recommendation is perhaps all abstinence for 6 weeks carrying out a vaginal delivery and 8 weeks after a caesarean location.

I believe that the most important thing for the newly delivered mother to teach positive behaviour and you ill. The mother is the basic Care taker of the individual and if she is ill she lose the ability to take Care of various her baby. In addition, the baby is vulnerable to the mother's spirit therefore will react outcome. If any negative behaviour is prolonged it will have a negative bearing on the baby's character and observe after behaviour. If you want a new baby who is happy simple to look after you need to be positive and happy between Pregnancy.

The last 4 practices in my experience are out of context on the net especially when some of us are from different religious faiths with there being no substantial evidence to show the result of observing these last cleanliness.

Having worked with ladies from Western countries and Malaysia I must say that our elderly ladies low on gynaecological and arthritic energies. Could this be because of our confinement practices or inherited genes? I honestly cannot crucial this question.

For those of you who sadly are still unsure about the importance of traditional practices my advice is that sometimes it usually is easier to comply usually in the elders' advice for the sake of peace even though if you very uncomfortable for several days. Then there will possibly be this doubt about what follows if we do instead of being comply. Later, if we complain of pain we will definitely pay attention phrase "I told someone so".

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