Our Holistic Postpartum Guide: A Plan for Post-Birth Recovery Inside + Out

New mothers are born again along with their babies. Postpartum offers up the opportunity to reconnect with yourself as you adjust to your new body, new baby, and new life. Our holistic postpartum plan is not a plant for bouncing back. It’s a plan for moving through postpartum and emerging anew. You’ve birthed a new being and are yourself a new being. This plan walks you through how to maintain a sense of balance. Nurturing ourselves well allows us to nurture others well.

Nutrition

During postpartum, it is essential to make blood-building, iron-rich foods the basis of your diet. There are a number of iron sources, but dark, leafy greens are easy to digest (supplements in the form of pills often lead to constipation) and may be used in a myriad of ways. Adding them to soups, smoothies, and salads are all ways to incorporate more greens into your diet. Iron deficiency in postpartum has been linked to physical, cognitive, and psychiatric issues that can negatively impact mother and child.

Your diet should also include nutrient dense foods like oatmeal ( an economical and effective galactagogue), high quality plant or animal protein (organic if possible), organic yogurt, fresh soups, and broths.

The Tisane is a great way to supplement an already nutritious diet. It contains galactogogues for breastfeeding support, nervines to aid in sleep and emotional balance, and nutritive herbs (including iron-rich nettle) to restore and heal the body throughout.

Establishing Your Collective

Spend some time in thought about the types of support you may need in postpartum. As best you can, try think about what might be most difficult for you. If it’s nutrition, think about outsourcing meal prep for a while. If the thought of breastfeeding brings up anxious feelings for you, get an early start on finding a support group or a lactation specialist who can help. It’s impossible to anticipate everything new motherhood might bring up for you, but some things to consider include a postpartum doula, a therapist specializing in maternal health, a pelvic floor specialist, an acupuncturist, a massage therapist, and nutritionist. Your list may look different say if you’re returning to work after having your baby or transitioning into life inside the home. Talk to friends or spend some time in thought about what may be most important to you.

Reconnecting to the Body

Reconnecting to the body through movement is an important investment of your time during postpartum. Find a form of movement that makes you feel grounded and energized.

You can also practice self-massage using The Oil. The Oil is blended with organic sesame oil, a warming oil that is often used in the Ayurvedic practice of self-massage (abhyanga). In addition to warming the body, the ingredients in The Oil soothe tension and nourish the skin. It can be used as a skin serum, nipple salve, and diaper salve as well.

Light a candle, run a bath, soak and reconnect.

Connect to Stillness

Learn to befriend the silence in postpartum. It’s a time of lying in, of being, and it’s imperative that we take this time of required rest. It is our human right to rest, but the pressures of modern life would have us to believe that taking any form of repose (even in postpartum) isn’t necessary.

Postpartum is a time of stillness, quiet, and it can also feel a little isolating. Spend this time reconnecting with yourself in meditation or prayer. Try journaling about your birth experience or what you’re feeling in postpartum. Lean into the feelings that postpartum is bringing up for you. What are they trying to open you up to? What are they teaching you?

Sow a Seed

Complete your holistic postpartum journey by sowing a seed of compassion by supporting the postpartum experience of a mother in need. Every birthing person is deserving of a postpartum experience that addresses. their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. Investing in the healing of others is an investment in your own healing. Mothers. and children are the foundation of a healthy society, and all social markers of health stem from the initial mother-baby bond which is affected by the postpartum period. Putting energy towards nurturing and healing postpartum experiences for others ensures that the world we and our children inhabit is as healthy and happy as it can be. Collective thriving is possible when we release separation and division and begin to care for one another.

Organizations to support: Tender, Doula Chronicles, 4 Kira 4 Moms , March for Moms, & Black Mamas Matter.