In Queens, New Mothers and Old Asian Custom

The women, both new mothers, were there for the Chinese practice of postpartum confinement — called zuo yuezi, or, in Mandarin, sitting the month.

To Western ears, confinement sounds like something out of a Victorian novel, but in some traditional Asian cultures, women still spend the month after a baby’s birth in pampered seclusion. Typically, a woman’s relatives would care for her, but more recently, the practice has been outsourced to postpartum doulas and confinement centers, like the one Ms. Lu operates. In the United States, they cater to middle-class immigrant women separated from their families. Business is steady enough in New York City to support at least four postpartum centers, tucked away in the heavily Asian-immigrant neighborhoods of Flushing and Bayside, Queens.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/05/nyregion/bringing-an-asian-tradition-for-new-mothers-to-new-york.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

It's not confined to Chinese culture, but to much of Asia. I know of doctors who would tell new mothers to not even wash their hair for a while.

pregnancy and birth. Or am I wrong about that?

I mean what new mother wouldn't love a month of being waited on and pampered...???

Ms. Lu said, lasts 45 to 60 days, but centers in the United States generally keep it to 30. The most notorious rule of confinement — a ban on showering and washing hair for the month — is generally considered anachronistic given the availability of clean, hot water.'

A month or six weeks to do nothing but take care of yourself and your baby seems like good idea to me. Now if we could figure out a way for all new moms to afford such care....

and of course we expect the fathers to have been working full time all along.

Someday this practice will be considered as barbaric as bound feet!

As long as the moms are actually being pampered and doted upon rather than hidden away because of some misogynist taboo.

Probably misogynist. Chinese culture has been patriarchal since the dawn of civilization.

They tend to believe that a new mom's body is vulnerable to infection or some other malady. It's probably an unnecessary with today's modern medicine and sanitation standards.

Convalescence is entirely appropriate for both mother and infant.

Mom would get back to her two jobs as soon as she's done giving birth.

doing light activities and gradually building up stamina. I nailed a floor down in my attic 3 weeks after my last one, which was a C-section. I had my husband carry up the plywood for it.

I can't imagine being 'secluded' for a month.

Where we could lie around and sleep during our painful periods, instead of being expected to go on and work like a man, like nothing happened.

My periods were HELL. I had cramps for four days, thirteen times a year and was exhausted and needed to sleep a lot.

Our society just does not acknowledge the needs of women to rest after childbirth or during periods.

I was off my feet and at home for four months prior to delivery. I could not work because sitting up caused too much pressure on my ribs. It hurt because the baby was jammed in and I'm a small person. I laid around on the sofa and tried to eat, sleep and breathe.

I was off 2 months after my C section. So I lost six months from work due to pregnancy and delivery.

number of traditional cultures that have similar practices.

We seem to be rapidly moving to the expectation that a pregnant woman simply go into the next room, give birth, and come out a couple of hours later and resume her job as if nothing had happened.

Even the easiest possible childbirth is not easy, and a woman goes through enormous hormonal changes at that point. I wish we'd honor what has just happened and allow a woman all the time she needs to recover properly, be with her baby, and then much later go back to the work place. Of course, this kind of thing is then used to beat women with, to refuse to pay them the same as men or childless women and so on. We live in a culture that has no sense of balance or proportion about stages of life.