Wherein you will lie in bed for a month and be rubbed down with wine: The basics of China’s traditional maternity care

Although China shocks some visitors in having lost much of its historic culture, you can always count on finding something here as old as the hills. Chinese customs of caring for the new mother is one of them. Chinese traditions and Chinese medicine place great importance on restoring the mother to health after the birth of her child, and an entire regimen has developed over the ages called zuo yue zi, or “sitting out the month” (坐月子). Although the first, detailed records of this style of maternity care date from the Qing Dynasty, many of the food remedies are likely much older than this, with medicinal uses for food being first recorded about 2,500 years ago.

Photo: Jon Ovington

Zuo yue zi combines thirty days of bed rest, with traditional remedies and a host of practices ranging from safeguard to superstition. To most Westerners, and quite a few younger Chinese, going through the entire traditional regimen sounds more difficult than it does relaxing. In zuo yue zi, the mother is to spend all of her time indoors, much of it in bed, and is prohibited from numerous activities, including bathing, washing her hair and brushing her teeth. Her caretaker, historically the mother-in law but these days perhaps an ayi or a nurse, takes care of the mother, feeds her, helps her with feeding the child and does whatever needs to be done in the household. The mother does not leave the house.

The food regimen of zuo yue zi is complex, varying somewhat from locale to locale, though basically centered on the Chinese principal of qi. According to Chinese traditional medicine, the body contains energies called qi, and they must be constantly balanced, or the person will fall ill. As qi is categorized as either hot (yang), or cold (yin), Chinese medicine seeks to balance an overabundance of hot qi with cold food and herbs, or balance an overabundance of cold qi with the hot kind. For the new mother, since she has just given birth, it is the cold qi which is heavy in her body. Hence the mother must be fed foods full of hot element as well as traditional remedies to restore the balance.

Hot foods aren’t just “hot” because they are classified as such under Chinese medicine, but often because they really are hot or sometimes spicy. One of the most common hot dishes is an herbal chicken soup, but there are quite an abundance of these recipes. Cantonese bao jiang cu is full of hots such as ginger, vinegar, eggs and pig's feet. Another common remedy is “bird's nest soup”, whose famed ingredient is the sticky saliva of the cave swift. Since the mother who has just given birth is said to be heavy on the cold qi, she must naturally also avoid foods which are “cold”. That means no green vegetables, no fruit and multiple other prohibitions.

Unless you're very familiar with this ancient practice, it's natural to ask – so is all this any good for the mother at all? Well, the new mother is certainly in a weakened state, and some zuo yue zi practices are clearly helpful. Rest is good, especially to protect the mother's vulnerable joints and bones. Many of the foods are rich in iron and protein and will help restore the body from the loss of blood. The practice of avoiding water entirely may be a preventative measure against water-born illnesses or colds. If this is the true origins, it certainly served a practical purpose in the past, though in a modern environment would not be as necessary. Other traditions within zuo yue zi appear to be pure superstition. One such rule is the prohibition against eating lamb during the month of rest, supposedly based on the similarity between the Chinese word for lamb (yang), and the word for epilepsy (yang dian feng). There was traditionally also a rule against naming the baby during the whole first month, or even showing it too much affection. It was believed that if the child were given attention in this way, a spirit would come and take away the child. Hence the parents would give the child a temporary name for the one month period, and give the proper name later.

Despite zuo yue zi's long history and significant place in Chinese culture, many urban and young Chinese only dabble in it. They might take the rest, but for a shorter time than thirty days. Or they might do some of the practices and not do others. With a much more mobile society and more children living apart from their parents, young professionals might hire a nurse or an ayi to help them with zuo yue zi, or check themselves into a clinic or hotel to be cared for daily if they have the money. The Chinese medical community also accepts zuo yue zi to a degree, as part of a regimen of care that includes modern nutrition and medicine. In fact it is quite common to find hospitals whose staff will advise young mothers on taking their month of rest and getting the right zuo yue zi cuisine. Zuo yue zi today is often a blend of the new and the old, and despite some changes, is entrenched enough in the culture that it will likely be with the Chinese far into the future.
 

Related Links
How to Get Married in China
Sticker Shock: The Cost of Giving Birth in China
Frog Venom, Cancer and Chinese Medicine

Warning：The use of any news and articles published on eChinacities.com without written permission from eChinacities.com constitutes copyright infringement, and legal action can be taken.