In the old days, the month immediately after delivery is considered a time of great danger, of illness and potential death to both mother and baby. This is because during the postpartum period the mother’s physiological classification changes to a period of strongest Yin when her body is at the weakest.

What is the Confinement Month?

The confinement month is an Asian practice whereby new moms are confined to the home for a period of one month after the delivery of their babies. In the Chinese culture that after giving birth, the mum must stay at home, eat certain types of food cooked with the perennial ginger, sesame oil and a good dose of rice wine or DOM and rest as much as possible so that the body can recover from the trauma of delivering a baby.

During this 1 month confinement period, a confinement lady (also called a “pui-yuet”) is normally employed for a month to live with the family to look after the new mother and baby. Pui-yuets are usually middle-aged women who have a great deal of knowledge on postnatal matters through her own experiences.

I just read an article about confinement practices called ‘Doing the month’: Ancient tradition meets modern motherhood - by Anne Williams, and would like to share with you:

Where did confinement come from, and how do mothers safely honour a tradition whose basis was formed long before modern medicine?

Zuo Yuezi
The Chinese tradition of Zuo Yuezi (Cho Yuet in Cantonese) dictates that for 40 days from the birth of their children, mothers must stay inside and avoid bathing, washing their hair or brushing their teeth. They must cover their heads to prevent chills, keep the windows closed, and remain in bed for as long as possible.

Zuo Yuezi – which loosely translates into doing the month – also requires mothers to avoid all forms of stress, including crying, shouting and talking for an entire cycle of the moon.

While ‘doing the month,’ mothers can’t eat ‘cold’ foods such as cool drinks, ice cream, fruits or vegetables. Instead, they must load up on ‘hot’ foods like boiled eggs and chicken and fish soup. Along with the tradition is a famous Chinese postpartum ‘decoction’ known as Shenghua Tang – an herbal cleansing and purifying remedy.

Origins in Chinese Medicine
Medical writings about Zuo Yuezi can be traced to the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911). According to Yi-Li Wu, associate professor of history at Albion College in Michigan, early Chinese medical writings described conditions such as eclampsia, maternal tetanus and other postpartum diseases that are still deadly today if left untreated. Essentially, ‘doing the month’ was a primitive form of quarantine to prevent postpartum complications.

If you analyze Zuo Yuezi in an early medical context, many of the practices made sense. The avoidance of bathing and teeth-brushing was a way to prevent water-borne illness; staying indoors helped women and babies avoid exposure to communicable diseases, and covering the head protected new mothers from catching a ‘chill.’

Food-wise, the proteins and iron found in eggs, meat and fish provided mothers with strength and muscle repair. Rest and heavy consumption of hot soup helped prevent dehydration, kept moms warm and was believed to promote the production of breast milk. Most importantly, the legendary herbal decoction of Shenghua Tang was thought to purify the female body and help slow vaginal bleeding.

The Power of Superstition
‘Doing the month’ wasn’t only a product of Chinese medicine. Without scientific explanations for the phenomena of the times, many ancient cultures developed devout beliefs in the supernatural.

For example, some of the fear of leaving home in the first month after birth had to do with evil spirits seeking to steal babies. More common was the belief that spirits and pregnant women were out to steal breast milk. Out of these superstitions came the avoidance of expectant mothers and strangers during Zuo Yuezi.

Baby snatchers were the reason that the Chinese did not give first-born children their official names until ‘doing the month’ was over. Instead, a newborn was given a little name or nickname to trick the evil spirits. Many parents continued to use the nickname throughout their children’s lives.

Zuo Yuezi Today
Whether or not you believe in Chinese medicine or superstitions surrounding ‘doing the month,’ there is no doubt that belief plays a significant role in one’s feeling of health and well-being.

Are you doing the month? Please share your knowledge/experiences. Do you hire a confinement lady to take care of you & your baby? I hope you are lucky to find a good confinement lady. If you do know a good confinement lady, please recommend here as it would be a disaster if hired a bad confinement nanny.