COOKING FOR POSTPARTUM MOTHERS - FOODS TO FAVOR AND AVOID

COOKING FOR POSTPARTUM MOTHERS - TIPS FOR FAMILY AND FRIENDS
by Ysha Oakes, Postpartum AyurDoula

After the delivery of a baby, the digestive power is often diminished; a new mother’s digestive system is very delicate. Yet her needs are great. Choice of foods and how well a mother digests her food has a great deal to do with the quality of her milk, avoiding depression and colic, and the quality of mom’s rejuvenation, strength, comfort, and resulting spontaneous and natural expression of mothering. The following suggestions are time tested, from the ancient system of natural health care called Ayurveda, and found common to many cultures around the world as well!

Try adapting your family favorites and refrigerator on-hands (no leftovers please, because of pretty guaranteed gas for mom and baby by next day!) to using the preferred veggies, seasonings, grains, sweets and proteins. Use ample oiliness, moisture, warmth, and of course, love. She will feel it all.

Please use suggested seasonings too! We need all six tastes in our main meals for balanced nutrition, but at this time emphasize sweet, sour and some salt with a little of the others. Herbs and spices help digestion, often lactation as well. Mom and baby have much inner and quiet work to do right now which has such long lasting effect on her well being and family life. And on ours too. So little adjustments tend to make a really big difference at this time in their lives.

Preferred Foods

There are lots of yummy things you can do with this list!

Pure water, warm, oily, liquid or moist, nourishing, delicious, gentle on the digestion. Fresh ingredients freshly prepared by a happy cook – these have better life force and maternal/infant results!

Proteins to favor are boiled warm milk (see our article about milk) and ricotta, cottage and other unfermented cheeses; split hulled mung beans in soup, perhaps other soaked overnight and well-cooked lentils. Legumes combined with grain or (smaller amount of) nuts or seeds gives a complete amino acid complement. Rarely does tofu or fermented cheeses work; most women and their babies have trouble with soy - and the hard to digest cheeses. Non vegetarians do chicken and fish soups after about 4 weeks. Lassi, a yogurt or buttermilk drink thinned half with water and seasoned, sweet or savory. Almond or other nut milk; specially nourishing among nuts and seeds are well soaked, (24 – 48 hours) for snack, or prepared vegetables, grains, nut milks, soups, or sauces.

Carbohydrates – Favor Basmati or white rices (cook with an extra ½-1 cup water per cup of rice), unleavened wheat such as couscous, pastas, sprouted grain “Essene” breads, and chapatis (unleavened tortillas), tapioca without the egg, yams, sweet/oiled winter squashes, oats, and quinoa or barley in smaller quantity. Women who have been eating brown rice daily may be fine with it, but is somewhat rough/scraping or constipating on tender bowels for most. Favor less refined sugars - especially the iron rich ones like Succanat, the dark Indian jaggery and molasses. Do not cook with honey. Postpartum moms DO need healthy sweets, even if not breastfeeding!Sweet fresh (not chilled) and freshly squeezed sweet fruit juices are wonderful for their life force. Coconut milk is sweet, soothing and delicious in cream sauces or soups too.

Vegetables – Cooked until softer, not just al dente – Asparagus, beet, carrot, fresh dill, fresh fenugreek leaves (methi), summer squashes, pumpkin, avocado, artichoke, chayote, okra. Some green beans or broccoli well seasoned if she is not of thin body type, and peeled eggplant, kale, spinach, or chard may also be fine properly seasoned; Be sure to use oiliness, seasonings, salt, and lime juice with leafy greens.

Seasonings - Basil, a little Black Mustard Seed, Cumin, Caraway, Citrus Peel, Cardamom, Cinnamon, Fennel, Fenugreek, Licorice Powder. Fresh Garlic...prepared only by mincing and browning in ghee, butter or sesame oil Ginger (fresh is often best, dry more drying and heating), pinches of Hing (Asafoetida - instead of Onion), Lime, Orange or Lemon juice and Peel, Marjoram, Nutmeg if she is not prone to constipation. A little Black Pepper, Paprika, Tamarind, Tarragon, Turmeric. Ajwan (wild celery) seeds soaked first in cool water.

Fats - Use healthy fats and oils more abundantly than normal, this is important for hormonal as well as rejuvenative effects and more. Most particularly clarified butter, sesame and toasted sesame oils, butter, coconut oil in the summer (it cools), and some olive are the best ones, though clarified butter (ghee) and coconut, a little sesame are the best for cooking healthy. Please avoid hydrogenated or cooked vegetable oils (trans-fatty acids)! And we get to forget the low-fat idea, for health, emotional, hormonal, mental and physical, unless medically advised otherwise such as from liver damage, alchohol or gall bladder problems.

Dry, cold, rough, harder to digest, heavy, clogging, fermented foods and “rascally” pungent (spicy) tastes. At least minimize these, better to just avoid. These factors for various reasons aggravate mother and/or infant digestion, can accumulate into colic, or slow mom’s rejuvenation. Some are bigger no-nos than others. Rushed or irritated atmosphere in cooking, serving, and eating also weakens digestion, hence maternal/infant tummy dis comfort.

Most of us know about these – Coffee, sodas, chocolate, alcohol, garlic (dry, raw, or undercooked); onion, radish, chilies, cabbage family.

Cold Foods and Drinks – yup, like ice cream and salads and chilled foods and drinks in general.

Heavies – such as red meats and fermented cheeses, cold homogenized and pasteurized non-organic milk, sour cream, yogurt, lotsa nuts, eggs, and fried foods (sauté is ok).

Dried foods – Rule of thumb is those obviously taking moisture out of the system to digest, like dried fruits, crackers, toast! These & rough dryer grains (millet, brown rice, corn, buckwheat) can be hard on fragile innards. Less white potatoes as well as drying, bitter, and astringent herbs (even frequent chamomile, red zinger and red raspberry), and watch out for the legumes - heavy wind producers.  2 – 3 cups of strong Sage or Turmeric tea is extreme enough it is used by midwives to dry up lactation.  Balance with oil, moist, sweet, sour, salty tastes and influences if you can't avoid.

Tomatoes, Peas, Peppers, Sprouts, Salads. 
Easy also on Leafy Greens first weeks, and other bitter/astringent foods. But the greens are so high in iron and bone flexibility minerals (especially the stems for the latter), if they sound good to Mom, balance them with oiliness, salt, fennel or cumin or caraway or dill, and ginger or roasted garlic or hing, lime, and some sweeter vegetable as well.

Milk, Cream with Sour, Salty, or Astringent tastes – Milk/cream digests best boiled (simplifies protein molecule), ok with grains, puddings or sweet fruit, not with main meals.  Or enjoy warm with a little honey or favorite sweetener and ginger, cardamom and/or saffron type spices. 

Fermented Foods – Such as Soy Sauce, Vinegar, Pickles, Tempeh, Miso, Most Cheeses, Mushrooms.  Both easy and hard to digest foods, as well as leftovers, after about 6 hours, point is degenerative energetics.  Make enough for just lunch and dinner for the family.