#18 Basic Principles of Postpartum Cooking

Feeling inspired by my recent launch of a postpartum cooking service for local mamas, I wanted to share a bit today about the underlying principles of postpartum cooking. There are some basic tenants across the world to help women ground and heal in this time, and food can be such a beautiful medicine for this period. It can set the tone for the start of a nourished motherhood, and give the body all the nutrients it needs to heal.

 

You'll hear about:

• The concept of convalescence - how this idea of rest and specific foods for a certain amount of time after an illness has so many commonalities with postpartum practices world wide. 
• You need even more calories when breastfeeding than pregnant. This can seem quite daunting, but it’s so important to be nourishing your body with nutrient dense foods while you’re both healing, and making milk! Breastfeeding burns about as many calories as a 45 minute run EVERY SINGLE DAY! (And night…)
• My background is in postpartum care from an Ayurvedic perspective, but these principles of postpartum food are universal. Comparing the way traditional cultures cares for pregnant women around the world leads to certain universal truths. 
• Eat enough food! It’s way more than you might expect. This is NOT the time to be thinking about dieting or “losing your baby weight.”
• A bit about the qualities of the Vata dosha - it’s the dosha of air and ether, and has qualities of being cold, rough, mobile, etc. It can be easy for vata be become unbalanced in the postpartum time: there is literally empty space in your body, that needs to be guarded and kept warm. 
• After birth, your digestive fire, or ‘Agni’ is low and needs to be carefully tended and built back up for proper absorption and digestion of birth food, and experiences. 
• Some universal postpartum food principles - food should be:
  • Warming
  • Easy to Digest
  • Well Spiced
  • Grounding
• Keep yourself warm! I don’t usually love heat, but keeping your body and your food warm saves up that energy to be put to heal.
• While frozen food is convenient, and sometimes the only option, fresh cooked food is optimal for digestion and has the most life force. I totally get that that is not always possible, and frozen food is 100% better than no food, but how can you create systems and call in support to support this?
• What are we deciding is worth investing in? I would argue that gathering resources around the postpartum time is one of the most vital events to invest in in your life!
• Thinking a bit about the energetics of food - for example, the carrot root grows in a stable, dark, slow environment, as opposed to the carrot tops which are constantly being stimulated and moved around in the wind. The root therefor will help you feel more grounded, where as the tops may increase the wind aspect on your body.
• The energies that are put into your food are equally (if not more) important than what you are actually eating. Being so open and vulnerable in the postpartum time means it can be easier to sense these things and be more easily influenced by other people’s energies. 
• The importance of the medicine of beauty and color! A little gesture can go a long way, having aesthetic beauty in your food and your space can go so far to uplift your mood. And adding a little artistic touch to food, or finding beauty and comfort in your dishwater for example can be its own kind of healing. This can apply to your room (especially if you are going to be there for 2 weeks straight!), you linens, and your whole space.
• Remember, this is all FOR you! How can you make it simple, comforting, and familiar? It doesn't have to be complicated.

 

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Mentioned in the show:

 

Tony(a) Lemos at Blazing Star Herbal School

Our Episode on Receiving in the Postpartum Time

Seven Sisters Plan

Sacred Window Center Website and Instagram

The Fourth Trimester by Kimberly Ann Johnson

Innate Tradition’s free class with Carly Rae Beaudry - MOTHERFOODS: Maternal Nutrition and Humanity's Health

My new Postpartum Cooking offering

 

Postpartum Cookbooks:

The First Forty Days

Nourishing Newborn Mothers

Mama’s Menu: Ayurvedic Recipes for Postpartum Healing

The Seed of Joy - Nourished Postpartum Cookbook

 

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