I continued with my list of postpartum instructions and the new mother asked me if she should do anything special now that her bones were weak. I asked her to clarify and she insisted that her bones were now weaker than they were prior to having the baby. I fished a little more, trying to figure out if she had some chronic disease i hadn't caught in her chart and her husband rolled his eyes as he explained that his mother and her mother insisted that she would be very very weak after the baby was born because the bones decrease in density. He topped the explanation off with, "It's a korean thing."
Truth is, my biological parents did not die in a fire. I never knew them--like many others that look like me and live in minnesota, i was "abandoned at the steps of the police station." Sometimes, i wish i experienced pregnancy with a doting korean mother telling me what to expect. Things based on generations of tradition and culture. Although i feel i have found a satisfying birthing culture (albiet, a dying culture) of birth, i feel a loss at not having these beliefs and expectations that were told to me since i was a girl. Something that i could roll my eyes at.
Pregnancy brings out these feelings of loss, i remember it from last time. As i try to imagine what this child i am pregnant with will become, i can't help think of my own time as a fetus and the thoughts my birth mother had about me.
So, surrogate cyber-korean mothers out there...What are other korean traditions around birth that you have heard?
7 comments:
As if adoptees are exempt from eating rice or something? Bah.
Not that I'm at all a knowledgeable source, but I have heard that after giving birth, new (Korean) moms are supposed to rest, and their moms feed them seaweed soup. The iron in it is supposed to help them recover. And also something about the potassium in the seaweed helping with breastfeeding. Or something like that...
Thoughts about this post?
Seaweed soup! I have heard this one...Not a bad idea. I'll add it to my list.
She says: The post was interesting, especially coming from an adoptee. I felt at a very young age that i wanted to have children genetically related to me because i don't know my other genetic relatives. I would get irritated by people who would ask me if i would adopt. In my indignant phase of being an adopte (anyone remember?), i felt that i had the right to have a dozen children (genetic) if i wanted; Society owed me this.
I've calmed down since then, and decreased my reproductive goals.
As far as having "your own" genetic children versus having "someone else's" through your vagina? Who the heck cares? I wholeheartedly agree with the author on this one.
I also know about seaweed soup... definitely lots of rest. Hm... turns out I don't know that much either. Um, does lots of nosy questions about whether you'd keep trying until you finally produce a boy count?
Korean postpartum habits...ew. It's based on sam-chil-il, or 21 days. The mom is supposed to limit her activity for 21 days. In other words, lie around a lot. Not supposed to bathe. Not supposed to eat cold foods. Eat a lot of seaweed soup. The women in my family tend to think I should eat a lot of sollungt'ang as well. Thankfully, my aunt couldn't come down because of opening a relatively new business and no way in hell I'd allow my mom to come. Otherwise, I would have been battling the nuts about these practices. I get enough nagging on the telephone about what I should and shouldn't be doing. Actually, I think it's the mother-in-law that is to be with the daughter during birth and the 21 days postpartum. Can you imagine that? Bleh!
You might be interested in reading about t'aegyo (태교). It's the Korean do's and don'ts while pregnant.
I could totally handle lying around for 21 days and having somebody make me seaweed soup, but I'd draw the line at not bathing for 21 days. Ewww.
I do remember reading something about how postpartum, you're supposed to eat warm/hot foods only -- something about your body being hot during pregnancy and cold after giving birth, so you need hot foods to warm you? Not sure... I'd ask my unni or umma, but don't want to give them false hopes. :-P
my mom almost fainted when i drank ice water in the hospital after having my baby. lol.. ahha.. the other things was no spicey food. at all! otherwise the baby's asshole will turn red. haha... it was kind of strange but for a little bit after the baby was born, i didn't WANT spicey food... a VERY strange phenomenon since i LOVE spicey food.
the thing with the cold... that's a strange one.. supposedly, if you let the "wind" in (like by wearing shorts instead of pants and bearing your skin) when you get older (i.e. become a grandma) you will feel like "wind" is coming out of your bones. strange eh?
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