The 5 Essentials of Postpartum Care
Remembering and Reclaiming Postpartum Care
The health and wellness of a Mother dictates the health and wellness of her family. This impacts the health and wellness of the community, with the ripple effect flowing to the collective.
In early 2022, I began studying traditional Postpartum Care with Rachelle Garcia Selgia of INNATE Traditions. She is a Traditional Midwife with the purpose of “Midwifing a cultural shift - in honor of our innate wisdom, personal authority and the sanctity of Life”.
Her teachings are based on the physiological and psychological design of a female body, specifically during Postpartum. She teaches what is required for thriving life based on how our ancestors lived and evolved, from the perspective that the biological female body is physiologically the same, regardless of the time in history and the lands we come from. In her teachings she weaves in Postpartum Care wisdom, cross-cultural practices, and the interconnected similarities from around the world, reminding us to look back and pick up the forgotten pieces left along the way, so we can create a new future centered around thriving life, for generations to come.
Traditional Postpartum Care focuses on 5 Essentials:
The 4 Pillars: Rest, Warmth, Body Care, and Nourishment
The Foundation: Community Support
It’s an honor to carry this wisdom forward into my community, to support mothers and families in repairing intergenerational deficiencies, and create a new way forward for the future generations.
Previously on the Blissful Blog…
Why is Postpartum Care a Necessity?
If a mother is supported by community, is well nourished with proper nutrient dense food, is cared for and feels safe, is seen in the duality of the beauty and challenges of being a mother, and supports her body in overall health and wellness during Postpartum (which is for life, not just the first 40 days), her family and community will be positively impacted - for generations to come.
This will also energetically support and heal the women in her lineage who didn’t receive this care, simply because she is the cycle breaker of this pattern of lack of Postpartum Care, for generations.
The village and traditional, physiological care have been removed in our modern way of life, creating separation from one another, all while bypassing the necessary care required for mothers and thriving life. Mothers are depleted, exhausted, and under-resourced because of the nuclear family model, and the current societal expectations that needing support means you’re “weak” or something is “wrong” with you. This distortion is a deep wound many hold within, but just because “it’s been this way for others”, doesn’t mean this has to be your experience, too.
Healing this collective imprint of depletion and disconnection begins with healing mothers through honoring and supporting them in their Postpartum time in 5 Essential ways...
REST, WARMTH, & BODY CARE
Extended Rest, Warmth and Body Care are required for healing. Pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding and mothering put heavy loads on the Womb, body and mind, delaying healing, increasing the risk of Postpartum perinatal mood disorders, health challenges later in life, and intergenerational depletion.
The collective expectation of new mothers is to "bounce back", "do it all", and "push through" with a smile on their face, with little acknowledgement on how this continues to deplete the new mother, who is also a newborn herself.
Allow me to break it down for you and the support people in your life so we may all unlearn this...
During pregnancy you're in a very expansive, Yang, "hot" state, with your body continuously changing as it nurtures and provides for growing baby. Your blood and fluid volume nearly doubles, while you're also growing and nurturing another human, and a whole other temporary organ, the placenta. Isn't the female body magical?!
As soon as the placenta is birthed, the body immediately goes from hot and expansive to cold and deficient. There is a wound the size of a dinner plate in your Womb from where the placenta detaches that takes 6 weeks to heal. For weeks you release excess blood and fluid.
Your body is healing from the inside out from the trauma and strain of pregnancy and birth, however you birthed your baby. The body is the most physically and energetically open it will ever be. Your Womb continues to contract for weeks, involuting to it's original size, and your organs find home again.
Regardless of how "prepared" you are for birth and postpartum, you are in a natural state of exhaustion and depletion, likely for longer than you anticipate. On top of that, you are now lactating and feeding your baby through your depleted, exhausted, healing body. Did you know that fluid loss from breastfeeding is the equivalent to blood loss of the same volume?
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, they say this Yin, open, depleted state leaves you susceptible to cold entering the body, particularly through the Womb, which delays and inhibits healing. This is why it’s so important to keep your feet warm, eat warming foods, avoid wind and cold drafts, avoid cold food and water, and why extended rest is essential.
We have a collective awareness that after injury, surgery or illness, rest and supportive elements like heat, physiotherapy or other common modalities of body care are required for healing, but for some reason we don't remember the same is required for new mothers, no matter how many babies she has.
Mothers also need to be centered, tended to, and mothered.
A new mother will experience an average of a 700 hour sleep deficit in the first year postpartum. Sleep deprivation is literally used as a form of torture, and has been for centuries. The expectation we have of mothers to function at her “best”, while sleep deprived, under-resourced, and under-supported is unrealistic, gaslighting, and harmful. Mothers deserve more.
Without adequate Rest, Warmth and Body Care, the mother will find herself anxious, exhausted, and dysregulated. This will manifest into perinatal mood disorders like postpartum depression, anxiety or rage, auto-immune dis-eases, or other chronic dis-eases. All of this is avoidable and reversible with appropriate care and tending to.
It’s not just about telling a mother to sleep or rest. You need to CREATE a felt sense of safety and space for her to do so, without judgment, guilt, or shame.
Body Care practices like Castor Oil Packs, Yoni Steams, Herbal Baths, and gentle massage with herbal infusion oils are all warming in nature, supporting healing of the Postpartum Womb and body. Warmth prevents blood stasis, while Body Care facilitates blood and lymph flow.
Pelvic care and other forms of body work are also essential to support your body in returning to it’s optimal state. All of this supports healing in many ways. It can also prevent and even repair previous dis-eases or health challenges, allowing you to live a healthy and thriving life, well into menopause.
NOURISHMENT
Postpartum is a natural time of depletion, especially while breastfeeding. This is why nourishment with whole, nutrient dense foods is crucial to replenish your body, support healing, and support the growth of your baby.
For 9 months you grow a human in your body through the food you eat and the stores in your body. Your brain shrinks by 5% by the end of pregnancy because your baby syphons off your brain to develop theirs…whaaattt?!
What you eat not only affects how your body heals, functions and your baby's development, but it also affects your mental health, overall spirit, and leaves an intergenerational imprint of depletion, repairs depletion, or lays a foundation for thriving health.
Food can be medicine, and it can also cause long-term, intergenerational depletion. Unfortunately, much of the food we consume today is severely nutrient-depleted, full of additives, fillers, rancid seed oils, and is overly processed. This is a big reason why auto-immune dis-eases, perinatal mood disorders, learning disabilities, and other chronic dis-eases are on the rise.
As your body heals, your digestive fire is reduced. There are certain foods more appropriate to eat in the immediate Postpartum time (the first 40 days, but also well into the first year Postpartum, and while you’re Menstruating, since that’s similar to a mini-monthly Postpartum).
Do your best to incorporate:
Foods that are warm in temperature, meaning not cold, because it’s easier for your body to digest. Always heat your food up before you eat it. Avoid foods and beverages that are cold like smoothies, salads, raw fruits and vegetables (at least for the first 3-6 weeks Postpartum).
Foods that are warm in nature, to support your body in creating heat, which supports healing and reduces inflammation. Add in warming herbs and spices like cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, pepper, rosemary and thyme.
Foods that are easy to digest. If your body needs to work hard to digest cold, greasy, processed foods, this misdirects the energy required for healing. Easy to digest foods include bone and vegetable broth, slow cooked/stewed meats, fish/shellfish, cooked dark leafy greens, stir-fried vegetables, root vegetables, winter squash, soups, curries, rice, and oats (both easier to digest if they have been soaked first).
Animal fats and proteins (grass-fed, free range and/or wild, if accessible to you) like butter, cream, whole milk, lard, organ meats, eggs, and fish/shellfish. For generations we have been told to avoid fats at all costs, with low-fat and low cholesterol being promoted everywhere you look. But did you know that 25% of the cholesterol we consume is taken by the brain? Cholesterol (from animal fats and proteins, not the harmful cholesterol from processed foods) is necessary for your cognitive function and replenishing what has been taken from your brain to develop your baby’s brain. Animal fats and proteins have essential fat-soluble vitamins, like Vitamin A, D, E, K, and Omega Fatty Acids which are essential for healing, brain development, and life-long health.
COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Community Support is the FOUNDATION of Postpartum Care, because the previous 4 pillars are simply not possible without Community Support and social recognition.
Mothers need women, partners, families, and work environments who understand the necessity of Postpartum Care and how to support all of this.
Unfortunately, most people have never had this kind of care modeled to them. Many have had to do this alone, or are shamed for asking for support. It’s heartbreaking to see and hear how little support and acknowledgement is offered, allowing me to see clearly the collective disconnect and devaluing of mothers, for generations, and why we are collectively unwell in virtually all areas of life.
Women were never meant to do all of this alone. A reason for such high rates of Postpartum depression, anxiety, rage, and why mothers feel like there is something “wrong” with them because they “can’t do it all” is due to living in isolation, disconnection, and a lack of support and social recognition of the Rite of Passage from Maiden to Mother - from not just family and community, but the dysfunctional, patriarchal culture of the West.
Our physiological design is rooted in a need for Community Support. None of the above requirements or options of support are accessible in it's true healing form without Community Support.
Community support begins with education and social recognition that who the mother is now is not who she was before she had a baby. Her entire perspective and outlook on life has changed. Her body has changed, and hasn’t felt like her own for a long time. A whole other human(s) is completely dependent on her for survival and development into an independent human, who will one day become a part of society. That’s a really heavy load with a lot weighing on the mothers. Because we have devalued the mother for centuries, her needs are expected to be put below the needs of her baby and family, but as I began this Blog with…
The health and wellness of a mother dictates the health and wellness of her family. This impacts the health and wellness of the community, with the ripple effect flowing to the collective.
We have now put high expectations on men and partners to step up, as I believe they should, in certain ways. However, we also need to remember that women have been supporting women for millennia, whereas men have had very little experience supporting pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and haven’t usually been the primary parent.
Men have been the hunters and providers. They have rarely been part of homemaking, supporting women, and raising children. Therefore they have little innate knowing in how to support women in the ways we are now expecting them to, and almost no modeling from their fathers or other men in their life in how to support their partners, wives, and mothers with honor and reverence in the Rite of Passage from Maiden to Mother.
This doesn’t mean they get a free pass, rather we need to honor and acknowledge that our partners can’t and shouldn’t be everything for us. They also need community support and positive, embodied Divine Masculine role models, too.
Community Support is about creating layers of support for the entire family unit, with a primary focus on mother-centered support. It’s about honoring her Rite of Passage, and the massive internal and external shifts that occur as the Maiden becomes the Mother, whether to one child or ten. It’s about honoring the shifts in all relationships, family dynamics, and managing the expectations we place on mothers. Each journey of pregnancy, birth and postpartum is different. May we honor and remember that.
Community support and social recognition doesn’t end once you have completed the first 40 days or the first year Postpartum. This care, tending to, and awareness needs to be lifelong, as you are now Postpartum for the rest of your life.
If you never received this kind of care (Rest, Warmth, Body Care, Nourishment and Community Support), please know it is not too late. You are worthy of being seen, held, honored and supported, whether you have had a live baby (or many), a pregnancy loss, or are 30+ years postpartum.
May the care and healing of your Womb also heal your mother, sisters, grandmothers and ancestors. May the healing we do today flow forward to future generations.
May we collectively remember we are worthy of receiving compassionate, nurturing care, and may we open ourselves up to receive the support of others.
Curious about my In-Home and Virtual Postpartum Care Offerings?
Thank you to my teacher, Rachelle Garcia Seliga of Innate Traditions. Years ago she began to research, remember and reclaim cross-cultural traditional, matriarchal ways of Postpartum Care to repair the intergenerational deficiencies caused by the systems and consciousness we’ve been programmed with, to heal ourselves and future generations to come. Although many practices and traditions are still intact cross-culturally in other parts of the world, she was at the very beginning of this remembrance and teachings now flowing into the collective consciousness.
I am grateful every day for her work, wisdom and knowledge that has been shared with me and women around the world. To be able to walk alongside countless women and mothers as we remember, reclaim, repair and heal together is a gift I am grateful for every day.
Thank you to all the women, in my lineage and beyond, who have laid the path for which this offering can flow through, from ancestors to future generations.
With love, bliss and gratitude,
- Brittany