ABSTRACT

Chinese regard the month after birth as the most vulnerable period in a woman's life. It is a period during which she must take proper care of herself or she will suffer long term health consequences such as arthritis, backache, asthma and anaemia. It is the whole family's responsibility to take proper care of her, to provide her with special food, and to relieve her of household duties. Older women such as mothers and mothers-in-law often take it upon themselves to instruct and to assist women in confinement to take proper care, teaching them a set of postpartum behavioural and dietary rules to protect themselves. This observance of proper conduct and confinement during the month after childbirth is termed tso yueh-tzu, "sitting the month".