For most mothers of Asian descent, leaving the hospital with their newborns often means reporting to “mum jail,” as some observers have dubbed it. The age-old tradition of confinement sees mothers limit themselves to the boundaries of their homes — and in some extreme cases, bed — for the next 30 days following delivery. Depending on one’s adherence to tradition, air conditioning, watching television and surfing the internet can all be verboten.
The practice is strict because the time immediately after delivery is seen as a “golden opportunity” — to use the words of one of Taiwan’s first female traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) physicians, Shuqi Zhuang — for a woman to recover after childbirth.
But the tradition is not without its critics. A 2009 study by Josephine Wong and Jane Fisher posits that aspects of the confinement period can “contribute to or fail to protect” against postpartum depression. One anonymous writer who penned an op-ed in Canadian magazine Today’s Parent said that confinement was “a key factor in [her] postpartum misery.”
“I watched life pass us by outside and yearned to feel the vibrant buzz of summer,” wrote the mother, who described how stifled she felt by the constant hovering and oftunwelcome interventions by her parents and in-laws. “I had nowhere to escape.”
This story is from the March 2021 edition of T Singapore: The New York Times Style Magazine.
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This story is from the March 2021 edition of T Singapore: The New York Times Style Magazine.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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