Confinement…

Mum cooking!!


Chicken with sesame oil, ginger and rice wine. Yummy!!


Freezer filled with lots & lots of meat (for the very 1st time! :))


6 herbs for my daily drink!


Herbs for bath.


Some people may dread the confinement period, while others enjoy every moment of it. Thank God I fall under the latter category! Hohoho!

God has truly been blessing me. I’m so glad to have Mum around to take care of me during this period. She’s a real blessing. She took care of me like I’m a baby myself!

Just a sharing about confinement for the Chinese, taken from http://www.anmum.com/ :

The Chinese have a confinement period of 1 month. But they are also advised to restrain from sexual activities for 100 days. During this 1 month confinement period, a confinement lady is normally employed for a month to live with the family and take care of the new mother and baby. There are 5 definite taboos during the Chinese confinement period.

1. The new mother is not allowed to wash her hair during the entire period. The reason generally given for this is that washing your hair after delivery is believed to affect the discharge of "unclean matter" from the womb, and to cause various physical irregularities like slackened internal organs, waist pains, poor blood circulation and dark pigmentation. For this reason, many Chinese women prefer to cut their hair short before delivery. Dry shampoos are a common alternative. These are available at all leading pharmacies. Bathing is only done with Chinese herb infused hot water only. These special herbs are available at all Chinese Medical Halls.

2. Another big no-no is excessive sweating and coming into contact with wind. The thinking behind this is that sweating further expands the pores allowing wind to enter the weakened body. Therefore, new mothers are advised not to consume foods that are too hot, and to wipe away sweat immediately.

3. Reading books and watching TV are also not recommended for more than 15 minutes because the eyes are thought to age first. Similarly, crying is also not encouraged.

4. For up to 6 months after delivery, new Chinese mothers are advised not to carry heavy loads to avoid the further slackening of internal organs and to prevent backaches. The right way to carry your baby is to sit, carry, then stand.

5. Water and cold drinks are not consumed for 21 days after delivery because they are thought to have a bad effect on the metabolism, causing among other things, rheumatism. Chinese women generally drink rice wine with the alcohol evaporated and the red date water.

Currently, being a “modernized” Chinese, we don’t really follow the above said taboos. However, we do follow taboo nos. 1, 2 & 5, except that we modify them (of course) to suit our lifestyle. I’m bathing with Chinese herbs – not sure what they are really for but I just follow what seems good for me. Well, there’s nothing to lose!

I’ve already started washing my hair on the 4th day of my confinement, but not sure whether it was due to that that I got a headache the following day! In fact I felt slightly hot and exposed myself to the cool breeze that was coming in to our 7th floor apartment. (yikes!) I got myself into further trouble then! My feet, arms and hands were literally aching and I was suffering from headache as well. I couldn’t do the “night shift” then. Hubby had to take full time night shift that night as I was totally knocked out. Thank God for hubby and my speedy recovery. After that, I took a little bit more initiative to listen and follow the advises of my beloved mum, mum-in-law and all who have gone through this before me!

Mum has been boiling Chinese herbs (6 in 1) for me every morning for my consumption from day to night – mum says it’s good for the body systems, including the eyes, kidney, blood circulation, etc. It tastes good so I don’t mind consuming them! Hehe…

Honestly, the drinks and all the confinement food prepared by mum are super-licious! I enjoyed every bit of it. Mum’s been cooking for me chicken cooked with sesame oil, ginger and rice wine and I didn’t get bored of it. It’s super yummy and I finally get to eat home-cooked food for at least a month! What a great blessing to have mum and mum-in-law (MIL) around! MIL will do the weekly buying of all the meat and vegetables, etc and mum will do the cooking. Mum also helps me in doing all the house chores as well as teaching me about taking care of baby Sarah. My house looks more like a family house now and my kitchen looks more like a “real” kitchen with lots of food in the fridge and an oily floor :)

Thank God for MUMS during confinement!!