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Happy Postpartum Holiday Cooking!

Anyone else like to talk about food?  Topic of the season:  Happy Postpartum Holiday Cooking!  OK, you can just order our cookbook, or get some great good ideas to start below and then, you will learn more than many yummy recipes, if you still order it, honestly.

How about preventing holiday overwhelm and exhaustion after having a baby?  For the winter holidays, we can choose Postpartum foods for happy baby (and mama!) tummies, to and support more lasting mood stability, lactation, rejuvenation, strength and of course, other benefits.  Lean into your choices with qualities of warm temp, oily, moist, sweet, maybe a touch of sattvic sour and salty.  The latter two tastes are better after the lochia has subsided and any swelling gone.  Support Mama to take a nap during the holiday festivities and not cook or wash dishes while Baby is passed around, too, if you want happy campers.  Moms often crash into some depression from the overwhelm on their fragile senses and other needs at these big loving parties and attentions, unfortunately, and naps as well as good food combining, support for her fragile agni, and extra digestible postnatal nutrition all really help.

The traditions I grew up with may vary from yours, but here are some Ayurvedically interpreted variations applied to some of our common foods, even if last minute Annie for this year’s Christmas day you may find these helpful.

Today I made a chutney recipe for my client (let’s call it “relish”. No worries it is very well cooked, and mama-baby do so well with it! It is such a favorite of my clients ever since Aparna Khonalkar shared it with me.

Instead of all the different carbs, let’s choose.  Everyone’s tummy will be happier actually, even if not so sedated, their inner light’s ability to share in joy in community, and to see how to help mama=baby best too, will be stronger when we are not so dulled out with partying.  So, hmm – Better than the drying astringency of white potatoes, or heavy complicated digestion of stuffing, how about baked (or your family favorite recipes for) yams, with lots of clarified butter, salt and pepper?  Leave off the marshmallows if possible….  If you want, add some iron rich sugar – easy!

Instead of so many different dishes, make some of them freshly prepared tomorrow, so baby won’t get gassy from all the leftovers.  Pretty guaranteed, I have to tell you.  And repeated gassiness can build into colic – it takes a few weeks then oh my, you don’t want that.

And/or Pumpkin soup can be soo soothing; use ample butterfat and ginger among your ingredients, garnish with bit of fresh minced cilantro and ground toasted almond, cashew, or even for the adventurous, toasted ground fenugreek seeds. Yum! If she is non-vegetarian, use a base broth freshly made not from a box, of poultry, long cooked stock preserving the fats, bone and other nutrients. First few days, mostly broth. Some asparagus in there would be a treat! Eggless pumpkin pie for later in the perpeureum.

Dress up steamed and generously buttered (clarified butter is best) rice with minced dill weed – it is lactation enhancing. Use enough S&P to balance astringency and flavor. After a few weeks, garnishing with fresh yoghurt (just a little) but don’t forget the spice. Toasted cumin seeds are one of my favs if the meal isn’t already rich in cumin.

Rice or pumpkin pudding, no need for eggs in early weeks – served hot with extra ghee or even butter, and with ginger and cardamom in it, will be very likely big hit for her, and baby.

How does a well cooked gingered and coconut sugar (ok, something iron rich and flavorful) glazed carrot dish with orange zest, S&P sound?

Instead of hot mulled cider, try hot mulled dark grape juice (more iron, more soothing, great for liver and pittas), with pinch saffron, some rose petals, and fresh ginger. Oh Yes, or see Emma’s post here, similar. Or a little pomegranate-grape juice in wine glass not chilled to sip for pittas may feel great too. The warm liquid is divine though.

We even have a soaked cashew eggnog recipe in the postpartum cookbook, Touching Heaven, Tonic Postpartum Recipes in our shop.  OH dear, it is not in current version – ask me for it if you like I’ll post.  It is delish!  We do have Joseph Immel’s Pumpkin Chai in the book, inspired from his website, Joyful Belly.

If a salad type prep is wanted….you can steam beets, asparagus, just about any veg on the postpartum list, and marinate with a roasted garlic/lime juice vinaigrette to give more than satisfaction. Make sure Mom gets some, with everyone else filling their plates!

What’s your call?  There are so many things we can do, of course.  How about Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year’s fare?  Absolutely, we do not need to compromise deliciousness or happy traditions!

Do you know how often your child goes #2?

As long as we are changing diapers, we know.  But do we know what it means – how often, and the consistency?  It is a primary signal of baby or child — or adult health factors.  Knowing your young or even older child’s bathroom habits will help so much to protect their health and happiness.  Really.

In all imbalance types, Ayurveda can offer simple easily understood guidance using properties of lifestyle and food. Today we talk about what is mostly the first type, showing some strength in her constitution to the third.

There is much which can be said, and FYI, the quality of bowel movements are categorized in three general ways:

  1. hard – dry, rough, this may be even pellet like.  Not as frequent; ie, constipated.  This is not healthy, not comfortable, and often accompanied by gas, bloating and or painful spasms (colic in young ones), even bleeding.  This is a sign of excess Vata dosha (the functional effect of air and ether elements combined).
  2. watery or loose – frequent through the day mustardy yellow cottage cheesey curds are normal and healthy for baby.  When older, or if it becomes green, mucousy or really wet, be concerned about loss of minerals as well as dehydration and give electrolytes, as well as consulting your doc or midwife.  This often happens with flu or other infection.  Loose but not runny wet diarrhea is a sign often of high pitta (functional combination of fire and water elements), candida perhaps, or other parasites can give this also.
  3. well formed, full, firm but soft – this is good.  This is a sign of good kapha usually (functional combination of earth and water elements), unless there is mucous in it, then kapha is in excess.  Kapha’s constipation is just slower and more difficult though not usually painful.

After other foods besides breast milk are added – formula or “solids” – it becomes thicker, smellier, etc, and commonly because the “solids” or formula are introduced without proper culturing of baby’s digestive system (no blame here, you didn’t know!) constipation and bad odor are both very common.  Mamas eating constipating foods will also give this tendency to newborn babies.  If baby’s prakruti (and vikruti) ie, genetic/body type makeup and imbalances are more fragile type than mama’s, it will show more in the little one.

For this mama who asks:

My 18 month old gets constipated. Had a weekly bm as an infant. Now it’s every 2-3 days. But I sense she is uncomfortable as it is too long. What do you recommend? I was thinking oil into the rectum? Almond oil?

She has no trouble with a bm once she starts having one. She is simply backed up. Her stool is often hard but not like pellets, actually rather large and typically with no foul odour.

Its just that there is no regularity and now that she is speaking if she does not go daily she can tell me she is not comfortable and has to go.

Pay attention to these simple words in your baby’s life:  Constipation is dry, rough, harder and lighter than more moist and oily stool.  There is a tendency to feel more cold, although in some cases it may be that mama takes too many herbal digestives and digestion/absorption is extra sharp.  Let’s start with emphasizing more moisture, smoothing textures, warm, heavy and oily qualities in foods and environment to start creating balance.

Warm oil baby massage is proven to help.

Diet is also very important.  Your 18 month old will be eating other foods.  It is a good sign that there is no foul odor, and that once the bowel moves it is not painful for Baby.  However, a long term habit of only once or 3 times a week indicates long term imbalances. She is little enough, it may correct pretty easily with dietary modifications.

Reduce dry, rough, light foods like toast, crackers and cheerios and thick, hard to digest cheeses and meats.  Soups and softly cooked moist things from veggies to simply prepared puddings are good, freshly cooked, rather than from a jar or leftover the next day. Cook rice, cereals etc with extra moisture and add fats and a bit of gentle spicing to her foods. All these things can be contributing to or reversing constipation. Definitely avoid corn – any non organic corn is pretty guaranteed to be genetically modified (see the movie online, Genetic Roulette for a real heads up).

Not knowing more about maternal or baby’s diet, I would advise not only the usual of making sure warm water is given the baby 1/2 – 1 hour after eating (can be made with very weak fennel tea, maybe 1/8 tsp seeds boiled 5 minutes in two cups of water – make fresh daily).  Add to baby’s food clarified butter, sometimes coconut oil if it is not winter, sesame or olive oil to baby’s food (vary them, not together).  Avocados are probably already part of her diet?  If at 18 months she is getting nut butter, thin it with water quite a bit, and perhaps add a little of the dark “highest lignin” flax oil to it, maybe 1/2 tsp per serving.

Begin each new food about 1 week apart, and include some “middle of the road” spices to ensure good digestion of food including the fats.  Cumin, coriander, turmeric, fennel, dill, caraway, cinnamon, pinch cardamom, a little cooked garlic even, all can be used (2 or 3 at a time not all at once).   No nutmeg when bowels are slow.  Commonly people give such bland foods and without fats to babies.  Spices help transform food and support good appetite and digestion.  Baby has been getting them through mama in utero, and through breast milk.  Why stop?

Good fats have so many virtues.  It is another topic, but please note, they beneficially lubricate while nourishing and stabilizing long burning energy!   Early postpartum mamas are advised to ingest extra of these good fats, for both their own comfort and rejuvenation, and for rich nourishing and balanced breast milk.  Baby and mama will do very well without uncomfortable laxatives by including more warmth, oilness, moisture, and also moist slippery quality of foods.  So, stewed dried fruits, which are rich in fiber, iron and muscle building nutrients, are also decidedly slippery and help things move through.  A bit of cinnamon or tiny pinch of clove is great to include therein.

Newborns on breast or bottle only benefit greatly in my practice by a fingertip (or nippletip) of organic clarified butter several times a day also, for constipation.

If the case is more severe, rub a little of this or castor oil on anus to relax (remember, warm!).  If none of these things work, you can give very small oil enema – using bulb syringe, maybe a tablespoon at most of one of the above, or yes, almond or sesame oil can be used.  Avoid sesame in summer with babies prone to rash.  The oil not only lubricates the bowel, it loosens chronically caked stuff, gently, and also nourishes the body through this amazing organ, the colon.  I have seen mamas not infrequently, given 1/3 cup enema of warm sesame oil, retain the whole thing at night and absorb all or most of it.

We live in a culture dedicated to low fat everything after some misreading of a research study several decades ago, reports Sally Fallon in the amazing first chapter of her cookbook, Nourishing Traditions.  I have the cookbook – don’t use the recipes personally, but want all my students to read the first 80 pages.  She has done a great service with the corrections to many dietary beliefs, and has documented it very well.  Let’s look again!

Some oils penetrate all 7 tissues and can nourish through the skin, like sesame oil, as Dr. Vasant Lad explains in depth about the qualities and actions of different oils on each tissue in his comprehensive Textbook of Ayurveda, Volume 3.  Warm oil massage on baby with sesame oil will nourish all 7 tissues and help re-oleate Baby.  Warm oily clockwise circles on baby’s tummy, damp heat on the abdomen, and simple knees to tummy ankle/leg presses will really help too.   Do any leg “bicycles” slowly, not too fast, to allow mind-body connection, integration and coordination to be cultivated.

Although you can give your baby a little temporary increase in oil, even 1/4 tsp of castor oil or a little oil enema and get things moving, it is so important to tend to the cause and change it before layers of complication cascade.  You will thank yourself for taking the time and your child will so benefit, all their life, from this good start.

Prompted by this mama today, let’s summarize a few important things:

  1. Contrary to what most docs will say, if baby doesn’t go at least daily, it is not healthy.
  2. It may be common, “normal, but you can see, Baby is not comfortable!
  3. Older kids may be grumpy and not know why.
  4. Younger or older kids with chronic constipation will begin to unfold layers of the disease process from the backed up toxins, dryness, hardness, discomforts…. it may manifest as GI tract stuff or migrate into headaches, skin problems, even nervous system problems (that is not a comprehensive list, just a few notes!)  If these get treated symptomatically rather than identifying the root cause, those will continue also as chronic problems….
  5. Long term chronic patterns can begin with imbalance from birth.
  6. If it is chronic, it is more difficult to turn around and the effects may be more serious.

OK, I’m not trying to scare anyone, just want you to give yourself maybe needed motivation to make some changes.  It usually means dietary and lifestyle changes.  It’s worth it.

 

Radiation – urgent issues, help from Ayurveda

Although  I believe the blackout on severity of Fukushima reactor #4’s vulnerability can truly be covering up the 2012 catastrophe that changes life as we know it on this planet, I DO NOT like to be a scare monger.  Especially with fragile populations.  So I speak to those who care for them, please see this significant data link.  Regardless of this news update, we should be talking dynamically together, how to protect mama and baby from radiation.  We do not have to be alarmist to be very timely.  They are among the most vulnerable populations to any kind of pollution and we are surrounded even w/o a 10-85X potency Chernobyl.  I will be addressing what can mamas do short of migrating to ?? which most won’t can’t and shouldn’t, in terms of daily care, in my cooking and consulting classes in June.  The June classes and Tuesday night series on herbals do have a prerequisite class running now and are being recorded.

Dr. Vasant Lad recommends postpartum mamas eat 2 tsp daily of tikta ghee.  These bitter herbs are not appropriate taken alone  – might even reduce milk supply that way in early postpartum, but prepared in ghee are not only padded, but work more effectively.  Best taken in 1/2 cup hot water or tea.  Tikta ghee addresses the nuclear level/dna and helps cleanse and reset the ether element among other things.

Dr. RamaKant Mishra speaks of the similarity between radiation and lightning strikes, distorting at the level of the ether element, which is nuclear energy and cell nucleus and DNA level.

There are of course other modifications to the abundant advice running around to protect mood, colic and other issues from being side effects, included in my 6 page article, Radiation Exposures – Protecting Mothers and Newborns with Ayurveda.

Please see this  urgent letter to two key UN reps signed by a long list of Japanese dignitaries and organizations with the news updates which cite important references, requesting urgent immediate organizing assistance for masterminding and global resources to deal with this issue.  I will post any update on how to easily participate in this campaign along with an article I have written for adapting radiation supports for mothers and new borns tomorrow.  With the news blackout on the topic, I am quite convinced we have to go viral best we can on it, and that this will happen God willing, via many channels.
Wishing  you the Peace Beyond Understanding, Strong community coherence, and health,
Ysha