About Birth

 Cultural Postpartum Traditions and
Their Positive or Negative Effects
By Jannekah Guya, Charis Midwifery Student

Throughout history and throughout the world, a woman’s passage into motherhood has been upheld as a sacred event. In Levitical law, God Himself included strict regulations that protected a woman in her postpartum period.  Leviticus 12 stipulated that if a woman gave birth to a son, she would be ceremonially unclean for 7 days, and was required to wait an additional 33 days to be purified from her bleeding.  If she gave birth to a daughter, she would be unclean for 2 weeks and was required to wait 66 days to be purified.  The purification process consisted of a sacrificial offering brought to the Temple, and a mikveh (ritual bath).  A woman’s ritual impurity during this time did not require isolation from her family but rather restricted her activity.  While she was “unclean” anything she touched became “unclean,” and this greatly limited her household duties like cooking, washing clothes, etc.  It also prevented her from being in social settings, as anyone who came into contact with her or anything she touched would also become unclean.  Her husband was furthermore forbidden from sexual relations with his wife during this time.  In other words, the ritually observed period when a new mother was considered temporarily “unclean” and unable to perform normal duties and chores, attend social events, and have sexual relations with her husband, became what we today might call “maternity leave.”  It provided her with one to two months of freedom from her usual responsibilities so that she could rest, care for her baby, and her body could heal.

But it wasn’t only the God fearing Jews who understood that a mother’s postpartum period must be protected.  A study by anthropologist Dana Raphael discovered that a common denominator of over 200 cultures around that world throughout time is that most of them had strong traditions, rituals and practices involving caring for postpartum women and the amount of quality of care and energy given to the new mother and baby.  This may have been in the form of a circle of women relatives; a special soup or foods to enhance milk production, increase strength, or speed healing in the mother; or the presence of a female elder or doula.  All the new mothers in these diverse cultures were relieved of all burdens, pressures, worries, and responsibilities apart from healing and nursing their baby.

It would seem that a deep, innate understanding of the preciousness of a mother’s postpartum period and the dire importance of protecting it, is something that is woven into our very makeup and being.  But the recent generations, all around the world, have begun to ignore these truths and the very cries of their own hearts, forsaking God’s perfect design that has proven itself over and over for thousands of years.  While modern society gives into the lie that we are advancing and progressing in our thought and ways of doing things, the reality is, the further away we get from the Creator’s way and the more we think we are smarter and know better, the more we devolve and the more mothers, babies, families, and society as a whole suffers for it.

America herself is a sad example of this truth.  In their book Lying-in: A History of Childbirth in America, coauthors Richard W. Wertz and Dorothy C Wertz describe what the women’s postpartum experiences were like in the New England Settlements of Colonial America:

“Childbirth was a woman’s event and the woman invited the help of friends and neighbors, and the entire community would pitch in, not only to help with the birth but to help with the postpartum care.  Anywhere from six to eight weeks was considered a suitable lying-in period, during which a woman rested, and other people helped for free with the care of her other children and the house, and taking care of a house was really a physically energetic task in those days.  Things were heavy and there was a lot of really hard labor.  So it was very necessary that other people helped.  Some of them were family but a lot were neighbors.  At the end of the period, it was custom for the woman to give a party.  She would invite all of the women who had helped her during the birth, and the lying in period, and they would have really a women’s festival, and there’s been nothing like it ever since.”

Indeed, the “modern” American woman’s postpartum experience resembles nothing like this today.  Tragically we have drifted so far from these lovely traditions of community unity and support and have instead accepted the satanic lie that we can, and should, do it alone.  In the name of independency and self-sufficiency, women are left feeling overwhelmed, inadequate, and alone, but are expected to power through and figure it all out.  No wonder the United States is currently plagued with a staggering number of cases of post partum depression.  Some estimates put the number of women who suffer from PPD each year as high has 1.3 million!  And this number is believed to be growing.

My favorite example of community based postpartum care and nurturing for mothers comes from Bogota, Columbia.  Perhaps if all new mothers around the world were treasured and exhorted in this manner, postpartum depression and all its ugly consequences would be relatively unheard of.  Luz Garcia was born in Botoga to a physician father and midwife mother.  In the book Mothering the New Mother, by Sally Placksin, she describes that birth in the mid-1900s in that area primarily took place in the home.  Women did not go to the hospital unless they had some kind of major complication in pregnancy or birth.  Birth was never seen as an illness but as a sign of beauty and life coming through.  If a woman could bear a child she was considered healthy and alive and it was believed every good thing was coming her way.  The baby was cared for from the moment the mother was found to be pregnant. Though there was no official prenatal care, everyone made sure the mother was well cared for and well fed.  She received the first portions of food and was encouraged to think about and look upon good, beautiful, happy things.  She was recommended often to have long walks, to look at flowers, to watch baby animals at play, and to hold other babies.

When the mother reached her 7th month of pregnancy somebody was always with her.  It was usually a woman who had already had a child and it was her job to teach the mother about pregnancy and birth and to encourage her and help remove all her fear.  The experienced mother would share her own experience and work hard to empower the new mother by helping her understand and believe that she was capable of a healthy pregnancy and birth.  She provided education about good nutrition and the importance of enough rest and positive thinking.  Everything was about positive reinforcement and the attitude and perspective that birth is a good thing, which the mother is perfectly designed to do, as well as the importance of having total faith that the baby would be healthy and would thrive.

While all this was taking place before the birth, it was already setting the foundation for positive birth and postpartum experiences for the mother.  When it was time for the baby to be born, a female family member who had already given birth was usually there to support and help the new mother.  As soon as the baby was born it was put on the mother’s breast to nurse, which was correctly believed to help with the birth of the placenta.

Once the mother was cleaned up, it was the last time she would see water for 40 days.  Part of this practice was due to concern over the mother’s body losing heat, especially because Bogota is a very cold city.  The fear was if the mother was exposed to water she could catch a cold, or even pneumonia.  Her hair could not be wet for forty days so they would sprinkle her hair with scented powder and then brush it out to remove the excess oils.  Her body was sponge-bathed, always with nice herbs to cleanse the body.  They also believed they cleaned the mother from the inside by giving her soups.

The mother’s only job was to nurse the baby and to learn to care for it.  All the other women would cook and bring food and whatever the mother needed.  They would do all the chores, such as cleaning the house and doing the laundry.  Everyone understood that the life of the baby depended on the mother being able to nurse and create a strong bond with her baby.  They took care of the mother so that she could take care of the baby.

No one allowed the mother to take on stress of any kind.  Everything was done for her and she was showered with gifts in the form of foods and special time and attention from loved ones.  She was pampered and protected for the whole first 6 weeks of her postpartum period.  When people came to visit, the center of attention wasn’t the baby, but rather the mother.  The mother was always the center and was always uplifted and praised.  Everyone would tell her what a wonderful job she had done, how well her body had done, and what a fabulous job she was doing as a mother, nursing and caring for her baby.  It was strongly believed that the mother would do well precisely because her body was expected to do well and because she herself believed she would do well.

Sadly, many of the cultures that initially had such healthy understanding and practices of protecting the postpartum period and the postpartum mother, have digressed and left their women all around the world to face their postpartum time alone, discarded, and forgotten.  But little by little women are rediscovering and reclaiming what they were deceived into giving up – the beauty of unified celebration and communal support of a new mother and her baby.  May we all return to original and perfect plan and design of the very Author of all life.

“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

“Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.”

“Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind.”

Bibliography:

-The Holy Bible, Leviticus 12:6-8.
-Miller, M., “Agape Bible Study,” Ancient Jewish Birthing Methods.
-Hunt, Michal, “The Pentateuch Part III”
-Placksin, Sally, Mothering the New Mother. New York, NY: New Market Press, 2000, p 50.
-Wertz, Richard W., and Dorothy C. Wertz, Lying In: A History of Childbirth in America. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1977, p 165.
-Stone, Katherine, “Postpartum Progress,” How Many Women Get Postpartum Depression: The Statistics on PPD, October 8, 2012.
-National Center for Biotechnology. “A Comparative Study of Postpartum Depression in Abused and Non-abused Women,” December 2005.
-Placksin, Sally, Mothering the New Mother. New York, NY: New Market Press, 2000, pp 57-59.
-The Holy Bible, Galatians 6:2.
-The Holy Bible, Psalm 133:1.
-The Holy Bible, 1 Peter 3:8.