postpartum recovery soup

Postpartum recovery soup is neither a "magic medicine" that can restore you to your pre-pregnancy state within a week, nor is it a useless IQ tax. Its core function is to replenish water and easily absorbable nutrients for the weak postpartum body, assist in metabolizing lochia, and adjust qi and blood. It is more useful to choose the right way to drink than to buy more expensive ingredients.

Not long ago, I accompanied a friend who had just given birth to a baby and was discharged from the hospital. Her mother-in-law was waiting downstairs with a thermos bucket. When she opened the lid, she found a milky-white pig's trotter soup. She said that after drinking it, she vomited, but her friend vomited after just two sips. That night, she cried with pain due to congestion. In the middle of the night, she went to see a lactation specialist. When the lactation specialist kneaded her breasts, she sighed and said that she had received 8 new mothers this week who had the same type of soup and blocked their breasts.

People of the older generation always think that they need to take a lot of supplements after childbirth. The thicker the soup, the more nutritious it is. However, modern nutritional research has long said that milky white soup is essentially emulsified fat, with a protein content of less than 10% of meat. Drinking too much does not have many benefits other than gaining weight and blocking milk. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t drink meat soup at all. From the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, when qi and blood are greatly depleted after childbirth, proper warming and tonic are necessary. In fact, there is no conflict between the two. The key is to drink it at the right time.

Let’s just talk about the three days after giving birth. Whether it is a normal delivery or a caesarean section, the body is in the critical period of expelling lochia. The stomach and intestines have also experienced the stress of childbirth, and their digestion ability is very poor. At this time, neither traditional Chinese medicine nor Western medicine recommends taking supplements. The soup you drink should be light, easy to digest, smooth, and help eliminate lochia. After I gave birth to my baby, the first meal I drank was shredded white radish soup cooked by my mother, which was low in salt and oil. It was warm and comforting. The next day I had flatulence. For the next two days, I drank millet porridge oil and loofah egg soup. I felt no burden at all and the lochia passed smoothly.

After a week or so, the lochia has almost been eliminated, and the intestines and stomach have recovered to a certain extent. If you want to produce milk, you can drink some meat soup with less oil, such as crucian carp soup, peanut stewed lean pork soup. When boiling, add less seasonings. After boiling, let it cool and skim off the oil on top before drinking. This will not only supplement protein but also prevent milk blockage. To be honest here, many people think that pig's trotters soup is better for breastfeeding than letting the baby suck it twice more. If you really want to supplement nutrition, eating the fish and pork in the soup will be more effective than drinking three bowls of soup.

Half a month after delivery, when the body is almost no longer sweating, you can slowly add some ingredients that replenish qi and blood, such as angelica, ginger, mutton soup, and red dates and black-bone chicken soup. If you have a hot body, put less angelica and astragalus, and add some lotus seeds and polygonatum to moisten it. If you have a cold body, you can add some Codonopsis pilosula and astragalus. You don't have to follow the trend and buy expensive ingredients such as fish maw and bird's nest. I have a friend who drank bird's nest every day during confinement, but her complexion was still sallow. Later, she went to see a Chinese medicine doctor who said that her spleen and stomach were weak and she couldn't absorb it at all. She switched to ordinary angelica and mutton soup twice a week. After drinking it for half a month, her complexion became smoother.

There is also a saying on the Internet that drinking vegetarian soup after childbirth is better than meat soup. There is no need to make this absolute. If you are a vegetarian yourself, or your stomach really can't stand greasy food, then you can make some mushroom soup, yam and lotus seed soup, or tofu soup. As long as you make sure you consume enough protein every day, it's totally fine. But if you usually like to eat meat, there is no need to drink vegetarian soup in order to "not block milk". Instead, meat soup with less oil can help you replenish energy and blood lost during childbirth faster.

Oh, by the way, there are a few more pitfalls that I have to remind you. Don’t believe in the idea that “the longer the soup is simmered, the more nutritious it will be.” If the soup is simmered for more than two hours, the purine content will be alarmingly high. If you drink too much, you may easily get high uric acid. Generally, boiling the soup for about an hour is enough. Also, don’t just add a bunch of messy Chinese herbal medicines. If you don’t know what your constitution is, ask a doctor or a regular nutritionist first. Don’t add random ingredients on your own. I once saw a mother who added half a catty of angelica root to her soup. After drinking it, she had a nosebleed for three days. It was not worth the gain.

In fact, in the final analysis, postpartum recovery soup is really not that particular. There is no need to make it so mysterious, and don't force the mother to drink something she doesn't like in the name of "for your own good." If she feels comfortable drinking it, her body can absorb it, and there is no uncomfortable reaction after drinking it, then it is a good soup suitable for her. After all, the most important thing about postpartum recovery is never how much tonic soup you drink, but whether you have a good rest and whether you feel comfortable, right?