'confinement period' myths & practices

Being asian and pregnant usually involves a period of 30-day confinement. My mom being a first time grandparent was eager to be the appointed confinement lady. And so she was.

While at the hospital recuperating after deliivery, my parents brought over Red Date and Longan Tea, both key ingredients are "heaty". Before going further into detail, for the benefit of other cultures who are not familiar, asian confinement period during the 30 days typically involves the following:

• no showering


• no washing of hair (yes you read this right, for a period of 30 days)


• consuming lots of "heaty" food such as : ginger (by the truck load), red dates, chicken, liver, kidneys assortment of chinese herbs meant to nourish the body as it is believed that after delivery, the woman's body experiences alot of wind and loss of blood.


• no exposure to the fan/aircon


• be house-confined, no going out for fear of catching a 'chill'.

Being my first pregnancy, i was determined to follow the recommended program thoroughly. And so, every meal for the first 10 days of my confinement consisted of specially prepared confinement diet. Following the special diet actually did cause my body to 'heat up' - not kidding. During the first 10 days while being on the confinement diet, I told my mom that I felt I should not be consuming so much 'heaty food' as I could literally feel my body running into overdrive. To which she replied,"you know, during my time, we ate ginger by the bags and kilos. what you're consuming now is nothing!"

Shortly after, approximately 6 days into my confinement, i started to break out in a horrible rash. It was so incredibly itchy and red, I felt like going into labour was a breeze compared to this rash and I would rather do it again than have to endure the itch. Obviously not being able to shower exacerbated the problem. The rash started with my abdomen area and spread to my chest, to my limbs and neck area. I could not stop scratching. Round about the same time, I started on my traditional Jamu massage and bengkung wrap program (more on this in my next post). So at first, I thought that it was due to the wrapping that caused the rash outbreak - hence I stopped that almost immediately. I just continued on the daily body massage. After about 3 days, when my rash was not clearing up, I started to panic and felt extremely depressed and distraught. I started googling and trawling the internet for more information.

At first I thought that I was experiencing PUPPS (Pruritic Urticarial Papules & Plagues of Pregnancy) - suddenly with Mr. Google, we all become doctors and start diagnosing ourselves, don't we? So I went to consult 2 doctors to which they had no cure/medication for me and just told me that all I could do was let my body handle  on its own and the rash should subside sooner or later, hopefully sooner rather than later. Can you imagine being told this when you're desperate for a cure to soothe and remove that insatiable itch?? It was the worst thing to hear. On top of that, having to adjust and deal with a newborn and being a first time parent, I was hanging onto my sanity by a very thin thread. I even went to the extent of trying homeopathic cures and so got the husband to run out and buy Dandelion Root (apparently it was meant to help the rash subside as it helped promote liver functions - I read somewhere online that rash outbreak might sometimes be due to the malfunction of the liver. That didn't help either.

I was really getting desperate and thought hard about what other methods I could try. Then TCM (traditional chinese medicine) came to mind. I started to google information on that but there wasn't as much information on TCM and rashes as PUPPS. But I decided to give it a try anyway. Hence, I went to consult 2 TCM doctors on 2 separate occasions (1 was a regular TCM doctor who was supposedly quite elderly and experienced and the other was a TCM female practitioner specialising in women's fertility). The first TCM I went to see was the senior male practitioner and the female practitioner I went to see her the next day to get a second opinion.

Lo and behold, both TCM practitioners diagnosed me as being "too heaty". Well, well, what do you know, there is a possibility of being "too heaty". My mom was in disbelief - she was a firm believer of the hokkien saying "there is no pregnant woman afraid of being heaty".

While the western doctors could not provide me any medical relief, TCM gave me some herbs to boil - which I consumed over a period of 3days. My rash subsided shortly after that. Alas, there are scars left behind by my rash, to my dismay.

In hindsight, the one thing that amused me most is: when I went to consult the female practitioner (who by the way, is from China) and told her that I had just delivered, the first thing she asked me was: "did you shower?" To which, I replied, yes, after the first 10 days. She shook her head and said, you should shower after delivery, as how you would before delivery - especially with the hot weather in Singapore, you must. There is no such thing as no showering during confinement.

Whether one chooses to subscribe to the traditional confinement practices during this infamous period, I sure as hell ain't going through this with my second pregnancy.