Why mothers should follow the age-old confinements after childbirth?

Confinements after childbirth has been followed for ages. But today the young moms deny to follow them. Read to know the logic and consequences.

During the old days,  when our moms were of our age, there were many confinements that they had to obey while giving birth to a child. Things would get severe post-birth of the child. This would bring along boredom and a sense of detachment for the new mother, but seldom she would be rescued from her emotions.

Now if we talk about the confinements post birth of a child, I must say the biggest confinements were:

• The mother will be confined in a room with her child
• No one else will be allowed in the room except the new born’s grandmother or someone who will take care of the child when the mother is not around. 
• The mother is only allowed to go to the toilet and completely isolated
• No mobile phone and source of entertainment were there on those days
• No shampoo and soap is allowed to use
• No non-veg and spicy food was allowed
• Even the furniture was removed from the room and a special arrangement was done for the mother and the child to sleep

And all this will go on for a month; 30 long days.

Well, today it would be much easier for moms to spend such as sweet time confined with their child. Some will happily agree to the point where they will get their own laptop and mobile phone with them. Jokes apart, it was a tough journey both physically as well as mentally for a mother to be confined in a room for a month. Even it hard today!

As a 21st century mother, I used to think that it is only orthodox Indians who practice such things even today and this punishable confinement has not changed over the decades. But I was wrong! 

In the Chinese tradition of Zuo Yue Zi, or “sitting the month” is a similar phenomenon followed as in India. And to my surprise, even today few Chinese women, despite being educated, follow such traditions. 

Why do people practices such strict confinements on mothers, after childbirth?

Well, there are many reasons, and most of them can be justified. Post childbirth, a mother goes through a lot of bodily ailments such as continuous bleeding, adjustments with feeding her child, lack of inner strength, and most importantly, the mother and the newborn are under constant threat to attract illness. The mother’s immune system falls weak due to child delivery and her body needs time to heal. On the other hand, a newborn is prone to diseases as his immune system is not yet developed to restrict harmful germs.

Another reason can be, most family members come to visit the newborn and bring along germs with them. As we cannot deny them every time, confinements were made a standing rule. 

Mothers were isolated so that they don’t catch up with germs from other family members in the house and transmit it to the child. However, many other scientific reasons support these old practiced confinements, but with this, I must say there are a few which has no meaning behind it.

How hard is it for mothers to obey the confinements?

I won’t lie to you! As I gave birth to my daughter I obeyed childbirth confinements as told to me by the elders in my family. For me as a person, it was not easy. I mean not easy at all. Though I had a mobile phone and laptop, I was mentally and physically broken. I constantly developed a feeling of being isolated and as if my life has come to an end.

In today’s scenario where most of us own a flat, I am fortunate enough to own a house. It gave us enough space to isolate me and my daughter from the rest of the family. The first two-three days were manageable as I was sleeping all the time.

I initially felt the difference when my family members and neighbors were called at our home to perform the naming ceremony of my daughter when she was 6 days old. I saw all the guests were sitting in another room. Some coming up to my door and peeping in and then going away. 

I felt really bad when I could not be a part of it. My brother rushed to my room and out of excitement jumped into my bed as he was not allowed in the hospital to meet his niece. Out of fright, I told him to leave before anyone sees him inside my room. But my heart cried and I wanted to witness the naming ceremony with others, chit chat, meet my family, sit with them and share my experience of being a new mother. But all was in vain.

How did I deal with hard feelings?

Certainly, I made up my mind that everything I wished to do was for my happiness and now I am responsible for my daughter. If I was amongst the crowd, my child would be affected, if I sat and chit chat there, my child would be lying in wet diapers and many such motherly thoughts. 

Though it was a tough time, I somehow managed to cross 22 days of confinement as a mother. Emotions, hormones and other things that surrounded me then were against me and every other thing made me sad. I would remorse seeing my husband visit me after he returns from the office, and then spend 5 minutes in my room away from my bed.

But saying so, today I feel all this was done for a good reason. Today when I see newborn developing illness and diseases which are caused due to contamination, it breaks my heart. I feel as a mother, there is no big duty than protecting her one-day-old child. Even the animals don’t leave their children just after birth!

Well, I have done many crazy things during those 22 days. It tried and did a few, which I think I could ever do. Even my mother was shocked to know that I have tried to do such things. But my mother-in-law and my husband, of course, were my great supporters. Here are the things that I did when I was sitting idle for 22 days.

• Made a frock for my daughter- cutting and sewing (hand sowed) done all by me
• I made mittens and bibs which I used 
• Tried to read my holy book GITA
• Developed a brand new skill of hand embroidery (tried on a table cloth)
• YouTube was my most go-to pastime

Hope mothers follow a few confinements even today, to protect their newborn. Though it is hard to go by every rule as many of us live in nuclear families or have settled abroad, but still, we must seek help from elders at the time of childbirth.