For three trimesters, nine months, forty-some-odd weeks, you incubated life. You fed a little furnace inside you, building ears, toes, a heart, lungs out of proteins and love. Now, you incubate you: rebuilding your own life force, your own will and sense of self, in a new way.
Every culture that I have come across emphasizes warmth as part of the postpartum healing process. It’s all about a warm, quiet, healing environment: an external womb for the mother baby couplet, supporting rebuilding blood, energy, and life force. My Guatamalan patients sometimes ask me for cotton to place in their ears: keeping in warmth and quiet, and keeping out the chill of the mountain air. The Traditional Chinese postpartum practice is called mother roasting, and the Thai call it Yu Fai, or ‘lying near fire’. Many of these holistic models of postpartum practice involve taboos against anything that could cause you to catch a chill, like washing hair, or eating cold foods or drinking cold drinks. And they incorporate soothing and warming things like soups, massage with warm oil, steam treatments,
If you are having your baby here in Richmond, Virginia, where I am, and it’s summer, you’re in luck, as the hot, muggy world has got your back! Think of the sticky summer as here to help, warming your sore muscles and rebuilding your internal fire.
And either way, what might it look like to experiment with warmth as part of your healing practice? I’m not talking about anything extreme, like turning off your AC if it’s hot (I really want you sleeping well when you can!) or denying yourself things that make you feel good and comfortable like washing your hair or a cold drink. I’m thinking more like microdosing this concept: maybe one of your glasses of water a day you experiment with skipping the ice, or you make yourself a ginger tea, or incorporate warming spices into your meals like cinnamon, ginger, cumin, black pepper, coriander, and chiles. If your partner really likes to keep the AC cooler, (or the heat lower, if it’s winter) than is comfortable for you, maybe add an extra layer. A light scarf can feel especially like a warm hug. If you love hot sauce, yes! Boom! This condiment has graduated to part of your healing practice. I love soup for postpartum, especially pho. If your friends are asking you what they can send you via Grubhub, keep it in mind! I also love the Trader Joe’s ginger turmeric tea- it’s so sweet and good especially if you let it steep for a long time. Oatmeal is a super nice warm breakfast for postpartum: if you are an Instant Pot person like me, even the steel cut oats are beyond easy. My mother-in-law does hers in a rice cooker. You can even throw some berries in there or prunes, for sweeten and to keep things moving easily digestion-wise. Last summer I got really into steel cut oats with butter, blackberries, peaches and ginger. YUM. You can switch it up with different warming spices depending on your mood, cardamom and blueberry, peach and ginger, strawberry tahini. I will even go for a savory oatmeal sometimes, with ginger, soy sauce, and sesame oil, a little green onion and a fried egg. It’s nice!
So tell me, what might pleasant, comfortable warmth and heat look like for you in your postpartum healing period?