the idea of a period of confinement is new to me...

[matthew_coghlan]

hi all,

i'm an ang moh new-father-to-be in singapore. the idea of a period of confinement is new to me. do we have something like this in the west?

my gut instinct is that allowing a newborn to adjust to a smaller world first and the mother to recover from birth is a very sensible thing to do indeed.

but what about the traditional confinement period food? the commercial providers are very expensive. i would normally cook meals that contain similar ingredients, such as chicken with garlic and ginger. my wife and I never eat pork, let alone pork liver, etc., so the notion of it is slightly foul.

i would welcome hearing your views from all perspectives on confinement.

cheers

matthew

[carolynW]

The confinement lady I had, would adjust recipes to halal as well as now the confinement thing is also gaining popularity among the malaysian malays. She would substitute beef for pork. There is a whole theory surrounding food for the chinese, foods can be placed into heaty, or cooling or neutral. Also body conditions, so apparently after giving birth, one is in a "cool" state, after being in a "heaty" state for a long time. The foods post birth is to rebalance this state and to re energise the mom's body after giving away alot of it to the child and childbirth.

I am chinese but brought up rather western, I don't think I entirely believe in all the customs, I think that no bathing made sense in the old days when the weather was cold and there were no hairdryers to dry one's hair... but when my cousin did the confinement thing, she said one's pores also open up to absorb more and if one bathed, that contributed to more cooling into a already cool state (post birth). So the confinement lady made me a lemongrass and ginger bath every day (it smelled so good, I am glad there is this "theory" out there, it was very enjoyable). My conclusion is that the bath itself is relaxing and wonderful and something to look forward to after not sleeping thru the night (as one still has to pump even if the baby is with the confinement nanny at night).

The food - I did not have a confinement nanny for my first child and did for my second and noticed a big difference in energy (prob also cos she did the night shift) but I ate alot better (she was a good cook) alot more, had less trouble with amount of breastmilk and breastfeeding issues (like engorgement etc) and I didn't gain weight, I would say about 5% of the stuff she maid was "yucky" the necessary evil herbal soups. You can by the way if you wanted to DIY it buy the cookbooks.

The rest - this confinement nanny really "nagged" me to rest. I didn't believe that it was that big a deal and about 10 days after giving birth I had to go into the city (we lived in taipei), we were moving so apart fm seeing the dr I went to do moving admin stuff. I had a driver, the confinement nanny follow me and the baby (breastfeeding), I can't say I even overstretched my physical abilities and was out for 5 hours then that night I was in so much pain I had to be helped getting up. I think I then understood why rest rest rest was essential.

The other thing she does is that she knows baby care, sometimes baby's have a rash or pimples (just baby issues that there is good second opinion) or sleep issues that get sorted out by her as well, my second son slept for 5 hours by the time she left, my first only did stretches of 2 to 3 hours for many months.

After the confinement experience with the nanny I highly recommend it to any friend who is pregnant. I feel bad when I visit the ones who have chosen to DIY or their mom's can DIY it because that experience could have been alot lot lot more pleasant.

[kristine0914]

Hello Matthew,

I'm a second time mommy-to-be in December.

During my first baby, I followed the one month confinement period and it has been very beneficial to me, it allowed me to recover faster and slim down faster. I had friends same age as me who also gave birth around the same time, but they had a lot of physical pain months after giving birth. Some even haven't fully recovered 2 years after.

If you prefer to cook your own confinement food, I suggest you try the book: The Chinese Pregnancy & Confinement Cookbook by Ng Siong Mui
We bought ours at Pop Central in Bras Basah Complex. The good thing about this book is it explains the reasons behind such practices of the chinese. It also covers pre-natal diet and post-natal diet.


You can also browse/check out other books first and see the recipes inside before purchasing one since you mentioned you're not into pork and the like.

Hope this helps

Kris