Sunny and Baby at the Korean Care Center

Sunny and the baby are spending the next week at a traditional Korean postpartum care center.

In Korea, there are 21 days where a mother’s job is to just eat and rest. According to Korean traditional post-partum beliefs her body is weak and broken. If she doesn’t recover fully she can have chronic issues in the future. Here is a list of current modern Korean traditions.

• 21-42 days of recovery for the mother
• Eating Miyeok-guk (Seaweed Soup) at least three times a day
  • Belief: it cleans the blood and contracts the uterus
• Don’t eat hard or crunchy foods
  • Medical science shows that new mothers’ gums are tender after birth, so there is some truth to this
• Mothers should stay warm
  • This is an old humors belief in hot and cold common in east Asia and other cultures. The blood is hot, and mothers lose this in childbirth, so they must always be kept excessively warm to recover this lost humor.
  • This includes not drinking cold liquids. They must be hot or at room temperature. And no ice cream!
  • Avoid cold drafts. The belief is that a woman’s bones are loose, and a draft can enter the joints and cause rheumatism or arthritis in old age.
  • Always wear socks and blankets
• Mothers have a special caretaker
  • This is either an elder female in the family, a person hired to help or some time in a post-partum clinic, known as a sanhujoriwon
• Mothers’ primary jobs are to eat and rest
  • No house chores
  • No driving
  • Don’t leave the house
• Proper breast massages
• I don’t think this is strictly a Korean belief
• Hot pads and hot towels on the breasts also help–and are also not strictly Korean practices

Anyway. Here are some pictures I took today. Olivia weighed 6 pounds 4 ounces at her doctors appointment on Thursday. She is also 19 inches tall now. She seems to be putting some weight on her face now and maybe entering chubby baby phase.