The First Forty Days: The Essential Art of Nourishing the New Mother

Somehow, a pervasive idea has spread in modern times that the mom who is out and about soonest with her baby is somehow the strongest, like an episode of Survivor. For some type-A parents, it's almost a badge of honor to say you made it to yoga after two weeks, snuck off to the office for a meeting, or flew with your infant across time zones. But that's all upside down—in a healthy postpartum period, it's she who stays still that wins the prize.

Asking for help can be hard at first, but reaching out when you are in need is a muscle that gets stronger with use.

Often a woman encounters herself in an entirely new way during the process of giving birth. She may encounter the effects of traumas long buried, or she may encounter fear long denied, she may also discover power deep within herself that she had never imagined. —RETURN TO THE GREAT MOTHER BY ISA GUCCIARDI, PHD, FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE SACRED STREAM, BERKELEY, CA

Though it is becoming an increasingly popular area of advocacy, the United States continues to top the list of nations that are disconnected from the basic concept of relieving a mother of overwork and giving her dancing hormones the time and space to regulate through rest and proper nutrition. It's a grin-and-bear-it moment (complete with dark circles and wan complexion). And, these days, with more and more women literally and energetically holding the home together as the primary breadwinner, and very often as the emotional center of the home as well, the postpartum period becomes a pressure cooker. The unconscious message beamed from all angles is, "Get back at it. You can't afford to rest." But it seems we can't afford not to. Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that when deliberate physical care and support surround a new mother after birth, as well as rituals that acknowledge the magnitude of the event of birth, postpartum anxiety and its more serious expression, postpartum depression, are much less likely to get a foothold. Consider that the key causes of these disturbingly common, yet still highly underreported, syndromes include isolation, extreme fatigue, overwork, shame or trauma about birth and one's body, difficulties and worries about breastfeeding, and nutritional depletion, all of which suggests that when we let go of the old ways, we inadvertently helped create a perfect storm of factors for postpartum depression.

let people know that honoring the first forty days is a lifelong gift to both mother and child.

Perhaps because pregnancy and birth get all the magazine covers and headlines—no surprise, as these events sell more stuff—we’ve overlooked this last part of the childbearing story. A woman’s postpartum experience might be given a brief nod at the end of a pregnancy book, or thirty seconds of footage at the end of a TV show, but a deeper look almost never occurs. Rather than get invited to take a sacred time-out after delivering her child, the new mother is more likely met with pressure to “bounce back”—back to her pre-pregnancy productivity, back to her pre-pregnancy body, and back to her pre-pregnancy spirits. But when it comes to becoming a mother, there is no back; there is only through. After birthing her child, every woman must pass through this initial adjustment phase. It is a strange and beautiful limbo zone that is both exhausting and exciting, mysterious and monotonous. When she arrives at the other side of the postpartum phase after roughly a month and a half, she will most certainly be facing forward, prepared to take her next steps into motherhood.