Keeping Women Healthy After Child-Birth

Abstract

Traditional care consists of numerous practices which mean to bring her back to 'rosy health and vigor' and to enable her to feed her child with sufficient nutritious milk. As the woman's health is all the more vulnerable after child-birth, practices are adopted to sustain her health.

The forty five days or one and half month after a child's birth is a period of high significance within most communities. People observe 'sutak' a pollution which afflicts family members when someone is born or dies. The family even refrains from worshiping the gods in the house-temple. The entire process of child-birth is considered a polluted affair. The family members refrain from touching the woman, the dai and helping woman during child-birth, which easily follows in to the after childbirth care.