Traditional Postpartum Care at Home
Warm the mother. Feed the mother. Tend to the mother.
Across many traditional postpartum cultures, the weeks after birth are not treated as a time to hurry back into ordinary life.
They are a time for warmth.
Rest.
Food.
Hands-on care.
Herbs.
And other people taking responsibility for tending to the woman who has just given birth.
I observed a traditional 40-day rest period after the births of my own babies, and it profoundly shaped the way I understand postpartum care.
After more than 30 years of loving, supporting and learning alongside mothers, this remains one of the parts of my work I feel most passionately about.
Bringing traditional postpartum care to your home
I come to you.
A visit is usually around two hours, but this isn’t a treatment with a rigid sequence that I perform on you.
I arrive and we see what is needed.
Perhaps you are cold and depleted.
Perhaps your body aches.
Perhaps your belly feels strange and unfamiliar.
Perhaps you haven’t eaten properly.
Perhaps feeding has taken over every waking moment.
Perhaps you need to talk about your birth.
Perhaps everybody has been holding the baby and nobody has been holding you.
We begin there.
Moxa & postpartum warmth
Moxa is one of the practices I particularly love bringing into postpartum care.
Moxibustion is a traditional East Asian practice using the dried herb mugwort, or Artemisia, to create gentle, focused warmth around particular areas of the body.
Postpartum, I use moxa as part of a wider philosophy of warming and restoring the mother.
The experience itself can be wonderfully simple: warmth, stillness and somebody else taking care of you for a while.
Depending upon your circumstances and what is appropriate for you, moxa may form a central part of our visit alongside food, rest, herbs, belly care and other traditional postpartum practices.
I can also show you simple ways of continuing appropriate warming practices between visits.
Food is part of the medicine
I trained as a chef long before I became a birthkeeper, and the two parts of my life meet very happily in postpartum care.
Traditional postpartum food tends to be warm, soft, nourishing and easy to digest.
Broths. Soups. Stews. Porridges. Teas. Tonics. Spices.
Food that asks very little of a tired body while giving something back.
We can talk about what you’re eating, what you actually enjoy, what is culturally familiar to you and what might be manageable in a house with a newborn.
This isn’t about imposing somebody else’s traditional postpartum diet upon you.
It is about finding ways to feed you well.
Herbs, oils & remedies
I may also bring herbs, oils or simple traditional preparations into your care.
What I use will depend on you, your birth, your recovery and whether you are breastfeeding.
I have spent decades working with herbs, aromatherapy and traditional remedies around the childbearing year, and I love the beautiful ordinariness of this kind of medicine.
Something warming to drink.
An oil.
A compress.
A bath.
A herb growing in a garden.
Small things can become part of the rhythm of being cared for.
Belly & body care
Your postpartum body does not need to be “fixed”.
It has just done something enormous.
But it may appreciate tending.
Depending upon what feels good and appropriate, our time might include gentle belly care, oils, wrapping, warming, scar support or some hands-on bodywork.
Massage can certainly be part of a visit when it is what your body is asking for.
But this isn’t primarily a massage service.
The intention is postpartum restoration.
Closing & traditional practices
We can also explore other traditional postpartum practices according to your needs and interests, including abdominal wrapping, warming practices, closing the body and vaginal steaming where appropriate.
I am interested in traditions as living knowledge rather than a menu of fashionable treatments.
So we will talk about what we are doing, where practices come from where this is known, why they might be used and whether they are actually appropriate for your body and circumstances.
You don’t need to do everything.
More is not necessarily better.
And sometimes we simply talk
This matters too.
Birth can leave a lot behind.
There may be parts you want to remember.
Parts you don’t understand.
Things that made you furious.
Things that frightened you.
Moments of extraordinary joy.
Or perhaps you just need somebody to sit beside you while you work out who you are now.
Traditional postpartum care isn’t only about tending to a body.
There is a woman inside that body.
So there is always room for the story.
What might a visit include?
Every visit is different, but yours might weave together:
moxa and warming care • nourishing food and drinks • herbs and traditional remedies • belly care • oils • abdominal wrapping • scar support • gentle bodywork • rest practices • birth-story listening • postpartum planning • feeding support • practical care
And sometimes what you need most is a cup of something warm and two uninterrupted hours in which somebody is paying attention to you.
That counts too.
In your home
I offer a limited number of postpartum home visits depending on where I am working.
As my work now takes me around the UK and internationally, availability changes throughout the year.
If I am going to be near you, we may be able to arrange a single visit or a series of visits.
For families wanting deeper support, I also offer 40-Day Motherwarming, which allows us to work together throughout the early postpartum period rather than trying to fit everything into one afternoon.
Postpartum home visit
Two hours
£250, including the herbs, oils or simple preparations I use or leave with you as part of the visit.
Travel outside my immediate area is additional and agreed when you book.
For international visits, please contact me for an individual arrangement.
Can’t have me in your home?
We can still work together.
I offer online postpartum consultations internationally and can help you think through food, rest, warmth, herbs, remedies, postpartum planning and finding appropriate hands-on support where you live.
I can also prepare or recommend remedies where appropriate.
A note about traditional care
Traditional postpartum care complements rather than replaces appropriate medical care.
I don’t diagnose or treat medical conditions through these visits.
If something about your bleeding, wound healing, pain, mental health, feeding, infection risk or general recovery needs clinical assessment, I will encourage you to contact the appropriate healthcare professional.
Knowing when something needs another kind of care is part of caring for women well.
You have given birth.
You don’t need to bounce back.
You don’t need to get your body back.
You don’t need to prove how quickly you can manage everything.
You need feeding.
Warmth.
Rest.
Time.
And, ideally, somebody looking after you while you are busy learning how to look after somebody else.
Book a postpartum home visit
Tell me where in the world you are, when you gave birth or when your baby is due, and what kind of postpartum support you’re looking for.
Then we’ll see whether our paths can meet.
listen to nicola being interviewed about postpartum wellness here
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