I know I just posted a post on why you need to hire a confinement lady not too long ago, and now I’m talking about doing it yourself? What the hell, Mich? Make up your mind! Well, I have 3 good reasons for DIY-ing my confinement this time round. Please hear me out?

Reason #1: I have a very capable full time live-in helper at home now.
Reason #2: I have discovered Mummamia Confinement.
Reason #3: A confinement lady now costs $2500 + lodging + food for 28 days. So I’m saving almost $100 per day. Imagine how much money I could spend on supplements and herbs to ‘nourish’ myself instead.

So are you with me yet?

For those who are not familiar with this Chinese tradition, I hear you ask what is confinement, or 坐月?

According to Chinese, a woman’s body is the weakest and most vulnerable to future ailments after childbirth, thus a confinement period of at least 4 weeks is necessary to ensure recovery and long term health. During confinement, the new mom will have to follow and endure a series of taboos, rituals and consume a strict diet of confinement meals.

To me, confinement food is probably the most important element of the entire practice. It is necessary for mothers to replenish energy (Qi), blood loss, vitamins, iron, calcium and restore Yang energy that had been lost during childbirth. We are after all what we eat. However, when I look up the internet for confinement food recipes, they are filled with ingredients which I’m not familiar with. The chinese herbs are either in chinese character (I can’t read Chinese), or they are in their scientific English name (the TCM shopkeeper doesn’t know what the hell I’m after). Needless to say, recipes on internet doesn’t help.

 
Here is where reason #2, Mummamia plays a huge part in my decision to DIY my own confinement. They have a product called Pre-packed Confinement Herbs. The name says it all. Prescribed by TCM physician, the herbs are packed for confinement recovery via 5 stages – Expel, Remove, Rejuvenate, Recuperate and Tonify. The herbs are packed in accordance to suit most new mother, be it caesarean or natural birth. Each pack is numbered Day 1, Day 2, and so on for easy reference.

Cooking it can’t be easier – all I need to do is add 250g of pork or 2 chicken thigh meat (for lunch and dinner each) with each pack, boil and let simmer with 1 litre water, and it is done after 1.5 hours. At first I was afraid that it might be bitter due to the dark colour of the soups, but it is actually quite yummy and goes well with rice. I’ve been told that the soup is tasty enough without adding any meat to it and suitable for vegan mothers.