Confinement Issues

You know, I got carried away last night writing about my baby colicky incident that I forgot about the weekend conversation I had with my other neighbour which I wanted to blog about.

Her daughter had just given birth last week. So, as usual me very 'pat' talking to the neighbour and she was telling me about how she will be helping out with the confinement and yadda yadda.

That brought back memories. Not vivid ones, very CLEAR, crystal. You know what's worst than giving birth? Its the confinement period. I thought the worst was over once Ashley was born. No sir, it wasn't. The 18 hour labour was easy peasy compared to what came after that.

For the benefit of those who are not familiar with the term "confinement", let me just explain a little. Its a chinese tradition of postpartum period for women who has given birth. This is commonly known as postpartum confinement or confinement period. This period usually lasts for 30 days but it can last for up to 100 days.

Similar to our western counterparts, its a time for women to rest and adjust both physically and psychologically, to the process of childbearing but with a twist. Yes, just like Jamie, there's a Twist. Not only are you physically drained from labour, there are many restrictions during the confinement period.

What kind of restrictions? Before my pregnancy, I was all talk saying that I could do it, I could do it all. For the sake of my health, I will embrace it with open arms. Boy I had those words shoved down my throat even before I could say "I"!

First, I was not allowed to wash my hair. Can you imagine your hair not being washed for 30 days? I can't go without a wash for a day let alone a freaking month.

You may think, well, no big deal, its just your hair. How bad can that be? Try not washing your hair and not having any shower for a month!!! Yes, no shower only limited sponge baths on alternate days. These are not your ordinary baths, there were boiled herbs in them.

Ok, no hairwash, no shower, what else? Lets see, no air-conditioning allowed. No fan blowing. I live in a very tropical country and the temperature is always 80 and above. Well, you can just imagine.

Food. Lets talk about the food. Its the same food every single day. Chicken and/or fish cooked with sesame oil and ginger. Lots of ginger. Apparently it has some medicinal benefit to a recovering mom. Oh I forgot to mention that I could not drink a drop of plain water. Yep, no H2O. It had to be some boiled chinese medicinal herbs.

So that, my friends, in a not so nutshell, was my confinement days. I went through that every single day for a month. So, I didn't wash my hair, shower or get to enjoy any artificial cool breeze and not to mention, lack of sleep plus no going out of the house. It didn't sound so tragic until I went through it myself. I seriously think that postpartum depression was induced, for me at least.