The transition into motherhood is know as Matrescence, or the 4th trimester. It is the first 3 months after giving birth where the new mom is healing on the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual level. She is adjusting to the new identity of motherhood, while forming a new bond and relationship with the little life, who is making a big impact. The new mom needs to be mothered during this time to give her the best outcome and foundation of health. Cultures all over the world have customs in place to mother the new mother. Here, we will talk about the 5 basic needs of the Postpartum Transition that goes beyond the 6-week check up from the Ob-Gyn.
Need 1: Rest: In the Indian and Chinese Cultures, there is a “golden month” where the new mother rest for 40 days, while their mom, or mother-in-law takes care of them and the household needs. This is a “sacred window” where baby and momma rest. This helps boost the immune system for both. During birth, we are opening the portal through the cervix and womb space. This is a psychic energy field that starts to open right before birth, opens at its peak at 10 cm dilated to push the baby out into the physical world, and slowly closes during the “golden month”. We cannot properly close this opening without rest!
Need 2: Nourishing, Warm Food: Growing a human for 40 weeks, birthing, nursing, or care-taking postpartum, all require energy and resources from the mom. We loose a lot of fluid and blood during birth. When we nurse, our body will extract vitamins and nutrients from us and our bones to supply the golden milk for the babe. This is why mineral rich, collagen dense, and nutrient embodied foods are key to restoring a depleted postpartum mama. Think of warm, gently cooked foods such as soups, bone broth with warming, blood, and yin building herbs, high protein food such as lamb, beef, fish, chicken, and eggs, stir-fry with protein and root vegetables, dark-leafy greens to restore the blood and support the Liver blood. Root vegetables absorb the deep minerals from the Earth: carrots, turnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, rutabaga, beets, and more. These nourishing foods will help offset anemia related to the common blood and amniotic fluid loss during birth and the blood loss from the locia. There are herbal remedies to help combine as teas and soups to help replenish the blood.
Need 3: Contact with Wise Women Collective. We are social creatures, who depend on one another for survival and thriving. The most common contributor of postpartum imbalance during this transition is sense of lonliness leading to depression, anxiety, panic, and rage. The new mama is exhausted and depleted. She needs her tribe of Wise Women to provide a foundation of support, assurance, and guidance. Support so she can heal. Assurance in she is learning how to be a mother. Guidance on teaching her how mother her child, while balancing her own needs. This collective can be practiced at family food gatherings such as dinner at the table, support at the birth and after, access to a phone list to call when the mother needs a lending ear.
Need 4: Loving Touch is considered the “1st Exercise” in the Indian culture. Loving touch can include daily massage with giving and receiving practice. The abdominal uterine massage on the stomach and solar plexus can be done by the mom, or someone she trusts. Massage helps flush out the excess hormones out of the lymphatic system, which maybe lingering post-birth. Massage helps increase circulation and warmth in the interstitial space. To get “cold” out of the body is key to increase blood flow to deliver the precious nutrients absorbed from the Need 2. In Chinese Medicine, cold is when there is an obstructed flow of qi (oxygen and gases) and xue to the vital organs and tissues. Cold causes constriction. Cold can occur when there has been increase loss of blood and yin fluids. Think about it. Most anemic people have a tendency to feel cold and are aggravated by cold weather. Emotionally, touch helps us feel safe in our bodies, ground when we feel anxious, and helps us process any stored trauma in the body.
Need 5: Connect with Nature: Women are interconnected to the rhythms of nature and the moon cycle. When we are disconnected from nature, we experience more emotional, hormonal, and psychic pain. The rhythms of nature are larger than ourselves and can helps us heal in its vastness. How can we connect with nature: put feet in the grass, gentle walking in the woods,or park, cooking from scratch with whole food, steaming with herbs (tea, soups, vaginal steaming, moxa). Sit on the Earth, connect with your womb space.
After birth, it is common for women to disconnect to their womb space. After the all-clear from the midwife, or OB-Gyn, on the physical healing of the vulva and womb; it is important to start connecting to the reproductive parts: vulva, labia majora, labia minora, clitoris, vaginal opening, and others. It is important to honor this space after everything it has provided for your child and yourself. It is important to have a good experience with self-touch and reconnecting. This will help restore confidence in the body, within our sexuality, libido health, and connection with our partners when we are ready. Other somatic practices to help heal this space may include epsom-salt baths, herbal baths, vaginal steaming, self-massage, breathing, and Acupuncture (distal Acupressure points) to open the flow of qi and xue along the channels.
These 5 Basic Postpartum Transition needs are the 5 basic rights to transition into motherhood. The society structure of supporting the family unit within the U.S.A. is suffering. This is showing with our increase in maternal deaths and maternal mental balance. Mothers are the foundation, the center of the family and society unit. They deserve much more than they have been given. I hope this blog provides a start in how to educate and empower ourselves in how to get our needs met, especially during the postpartum transition.
Thriving with Eastern Medicine & Acupuncture has the intention of supporting our mamas before, during, and after pregnancy. We have resources and therapies to help ease the transition of the postpartum period such as Acupuncture, Moxa (Mother Warming), Cupping, Herbal medicine, food therapy, and yoni steaming. To reach out for any questions, feel free to call 480.690.8933 to book a consultant with our Licensed Acupuncturist and Women Reproductive Health Specialist.