Confinement Fun

I have another delightful feature of Singapore to tell you about, but one that doesn't raise any public policy issues, being purely cultural. Singaporeans think you should really be babied during your "confinement", that is, your first month post-partum. If you don't have a Chinese mom or mother-in-law to be making you endless black chicken and herbs soups, you can order traditional Chinese confinement meals to be delivered to your house. (And they had them in the hospital, too!). And you're meant to be drinking Benedictine every day, on account of it being so herbal and medicinal. Of course, under this scheme you are not supposed to wash your hair for a month, or take the baby outside, but since I am a "cafeteria" Buddhist/Taoist/Confucian like that awful John Kerry, I just ignore that part.

And on the Malay side, I just finished my five days of daily massage followed by binding with herbal wraps. I was very skeptical about the value of the binding, but I figured I could just enjoy the massages and then take the wraps off. To my surprise, they were not only comfy and supportive, but also actually seem to work in shrinking me down. What next, will it turn out that those various French passive cellulite-reducing massages and wraps work too? (Minor public policy note: I read in French Elle this month that the costs of some of those treatments are partially reimbursed by the French health care system. Now, that is gold-standard.)

Comments

[Liz]

Lucky lucky you (and also, of course, the very best wishes from my house to yours)....

My mother not being, well, fully functional during my pregnancy, delivery, and "confinement"...I had the great good luck to have a doula (she didn't come to the hospital for the delivery, because I didn't want another person in on the delivery), but she did recommend a binder. I believed her on this one, and it did I believe shorten the amount of time I felt like a deflated baloon.

In other words, yes, childbirth is normal, but that doesn't mean you should not honor the process with rather lengthy transitional rituals. No, ritual is the wrong word....uhhmmm, devotions? No. Celebrations, perhaps.

[Claire]

I knew an old lady who had to stay in bed for a month after each baby so that her organs could fall back into place.