PART 1: Why is nourishment so important in postpartum?
This is Part 1, of a Three Part Blog Series on eating Ayurvedically postpartum!
Enjoy the read mama :-)
Food is not just about filling stomachs, it can be deeply medicinal in nature and utterly healing for the body on emotional, spiritual and physical levels. Paying more attention to what we eat, how we cook and how we eat during postpartum can go a long way to healing your recovering body as well as improving your health and wellbeing for the rest of your life.
Postpartum is a time for healing and nourishing yourself, so you in turn can nourish and care for your baby. An Ayurvedic diet and lifestyle can promote vitality and strength back into your mind, body and soul after the intensity of labour and birth.
A very wise women, known for her work in Ayurvedic postpartum care, Ysha Oakes says:
“After birth, there’s a sacred window of time. A time for complete rejuvenation of a woman’s physical, mental and spiritual health. A time for deep, extended bonding with her newborn. The first 42 days after birth set the stage for her next 42 years.”
- Ysha Oakes, Postpartum Ayurvedic Doula Founder of The Sacred Window School.
There are hundreds of cultures across the world that recognise this sacred window of time because like Ayurvedic tradition they acknowledge that birth is an opportunity for a woman, now a mother to heal and reinvent herself. They typically practice traditions passed down from generations such as confinement (or ‘lying in’) for up to 40 days, prescribe diets, special meals, relief from chores and cooking and support with baby care and breastfeeding.
These practices allow mother to learn how to slow down and process her new identity as both woman and mother. In the west, like here in Australia, our culture does not acknowledge birth in the same way and unfortunately our birth and postpartum statistics such as low breastfeeding rates, rates of postnatal depression and other mental health problems are high. We can however learn from traditional cultures and implement these nourishing practices in our own modern ways so that we can give ourselves the best chance of experiencing a positive postpartum. As Ysha Oakes says, this Bella Mama, will set the stage for your next 42 years of life!
Nepali Rice Pudding, from Julia Jones: Nourishing Newborn Mothers; my go to recipe book for postpartum cooking. This nourishing snack or breakfast dish is simple, easy to digest, sweet, grounding and nutrient dense. Perfect the newborn mother’s state - packed with ghee, basmati rice, ginger powder, cinnamon powder, jaggery, nutmeg, black pepper and fresh milk.
Eating should never bring you stress
Did you know that around 90% of serotonin, another happy hormone resides in your gut! Eating is not just about nourishment but emotional and spiritual connection. If we see food as a ‘gift’ from mother nature, we can start to respect just how sacred food is. Food connects us to our environment, and our environment to us. Eating food should not bring you stress, it should make you feel happy in preparing it, eating it and digesting it!
If you find that what I am about teach you brings you stress, then ask yourself why? Let your answers guide you. Perhaps you can use the ideas and adjust them, play with the recipes, create a food system that works for you! As my teacher Julia Jones says, the reality is ‘love conquers all’. HOWEVER, I do want to point out that this is not an excuse to eat poorly because this, my bella mama, will not serve you well.
What is Ayurveda and how can it help?
Ayurveda is an ancient healing system from India that originated about 5,000 years ago – it is both a nature-based science and an art of living. Its philosophy is based on the belief that the entire universe is an interplay of the five great elements: earth, fire, water, space and air. These elements are in everyone and everything. All species and all matter. The health of all of us depends on these elements being in balance.
When a woman births her baby she loses a lot of earth (baby, placenta), water (tears, fluid, mucus etc) and fire (blood, sweat) – leaving her with lots of air and space. This vulnerable state puts her at risk of ill health especially if she or others do not care for her/herself. To restore health, Ayurveda places emphasis on restoring earth, water and fire back into the newborn mother’s body. Fire is needed in small amounts because too much can dry mother out again. This can be done with attention to diet and eating habits as well as practices like massage and yoga. Ayurveda also suggests the use of herbal supplements and treatments prescribed by a qualified Ayurvedic Practitioner or Doctor.
As the five elements are in everything, they are also in the food we eat. We can tell what elements are in food by the way it tastes. Ayurveda speaks of six tastes: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter and astringent. Sweet is the main source of nutrition (made of up earth and water). Sour (earth & fire) and salty (water &fire) are useful to promote digestion but too much can make you feel dried out. Bitter (air & space), astringent (air & earth) and pungent (air & fire) are only beneficial in small quantities as too much can make the body lose water and feel ‘dry/ ‘spaced out’.
Because we aim to re-balance a newborn mothers earth, water and fire, an Ayurvedic inspired postpartum diet focuses on nutrient and energy dense foods mainly from the sweet taste (not in the way of refined sugars but nutrient dense fats, fruits &vegetables and wholegrains), followed by small amounts of sour and salty taste and very small quantities of foods that are bitter, astringent and pungent in taste.
Eating food as it comes from nature is a very important part of Ayurvedic eating. Being particularly aware of how it has been grown and where it has come from is also important as food that has been grown with the use of pesticides, herbicides, that is genetically modified, highly packaged or processed or comes from a long way from where it was originally grown is said to have lost its ‘prana’ or life force.