Day 10

Long long time ago, winter, in ancient China, women were put to work in the fields, and have to care for the kids at home. So, a smart lady came up with a bunch of rules to be carried out during the confinement periods after the delivery of a child. She also came up with a lot of weird rules that would limit the new mother from doing too much work but allowing them the comfort of wine (good for people living in cold climate) in their diets and the hassle of hair-washing.

These rules were carried out like the sausage story all the way to Malaysia through Chinese immigrants during the Tanah Melayu era. And so modern Chinese women in Malaysia follow suit with the rules of confinement that many people synonymize with torture.

Here are some rules of confinement in the Chinese way as practised by Malaysian women. Discrepancies may vary according to different mother in laws, moms or confinement ladies because there wasn't an Idiot's Guide to Confinement Rules printed yet. Also inserted are alternatives taken by modern women because after awhile, the rules really get to you.

1 You cannot bath for 12 days or 30 days.
OR You can bath with a special herbal water (ask your local traditional Chinese shop) as long as the water is super hot and you do not bath later than 4 in the afternoon (ensuring you step out of the bathroom into hot weather).
This is to prevent 'wind' from entering the body. Don't look at me, I got no idea what they are toking about either.

Alternative: Bathe with really hot water at the hottest time of the day. Separate the bathing time from your shampooing time because you cannot be exposed to air and water for too long at one time.

2 You cannot wash your hair for 21 days or 30 days.
OR You can comb through your hair with special concoctions of herbal water or ginger water.
Certain herbal concoctions allow you to shampoo your hair with regular shampoo and then washing your hair with the herbal water.

Alternative: Only wash your hair preferably after 15 days. After you do, wipe your hair dry (make sure there are no more water dripping form the tips of your hair) and then blow dry your hair completely. Take wine (suggestion: DOM or YouMeiShu) to ensure your body is still 'heaty' enough to prevent 'wind' from entering the body through open pores.
OR you can opt for dry shampoo. They are like talcum powder, only you put them on your hair instead of your body. It dries up the oily residue from your hair and scalp, and minimizes the odour. The packaging says that this works just as well for people who go camping. ... I just thought that it was interesting enough to share. Anyways....

3 You cannot drink anything cold.
OR You can only drink hot or warm water and Red Date Water.

Alternative: None. This is still okay unless you are not used to taking yellow rice wine whereby the alcohol intake will surely leave you quite thirsty. Then, opt for the hot water.

4 If you have gone through a C-sec, avoid ginger and fish for the first 7 days. Avoid chicken, santan, eggs, seafood for 14 days.
The ginger will give your body wind and will make the wound uneven, whereas fish will give your loccia (that is, the discharge that you will be experiencing after childbirth) a rather unpleasant, or some say, fishy smell. Santan, chicken, eggs and seafood are said to be 'poisonous' food which will delay recovery.

Alternative: I wouldn't ask you to ignore this because my surgeon told me this and there IS logic behind this, unlike the other rules of confinement in this list. Oh yeah, coffee is fine because it helps with the constriction of the uterus. But don't overdo it. The shrinking part is painful. Especially if it is the pelvic bone.

5 Do not use your eyes for more than 15 minutes at any particular task like watching tv or using the computer.
This is probably a ploy used to prevent women back then from sewing, stitching or doing other miniscule tasks that will hurt the backbone.
Alternative: Ignore. You will probably suffer from boredom if you don't do what is needed to pass time.

6 Other rules of confinement, summarized:

• Lie down a lot or you will feel back pain after the confinement period.
• Do not have the fan on or pointed in your direction (Many women worked around this by having the air conditioning on since nothing was said about the modern appliance. See how fragile this traditional system is?)
• Do not touch water, if you have to, make sure it is hot or extremely warm and it has been boiled before. Hot water from shower heaters don't count then (Again, women back then boil their water at the stove)
• Get a massage lady to massage the wind out of you. (This I don't oppose to, especially because if the lady is good, she will burp your wind from your body. As in, massage massage, burp urp... massage massage burp. But getting a massage is good enough)
  
• Do not carry heavy stuff (including the baby) or more recently, stuff that is heavier than your baby. So regardless of your baby being 6 lbs or 13 lbs, if the item is still not heavier than your baby, you can and may need to carry it.
• If you are bathing, do not bath when the sun goes down.
  

Alternative: Suptoyou what you want to do with the information above. I follow them as far as I can and when the final whistle blows, I'm done.

Friends of mine rarely follow through with the 30 day no bathing/hair washing rule. One friend lasted 10 days, my own sister 20 days and a colleague... 2 days. She washed her hair everyday afterwards. I havent heard of her getting migraines or long headaches, but she is wearing glasses to enable her to read small print. Might it be caused by her quick hair washing? There will not be any way of finding out scientifically, perhaps we should all sit down and have a sausage picnic and think about it.

I gotta go, apparenly my 15 minutes are up. Feeling imprisoned here, and I'm just entering Day 10.