Nourishing the Mother: What My Nutrition Education Didn't Teach Me
As a registered dietitian, I spent years learning about nutrition through the lens of science. During my education and training, we dedicated an entire section to prenatal nutrition. Pregnancy is one of the most nutritionally demanding seasons of a woman's life. For nine months, a mother's body gives continuously. Her baby receives protein to build muscles, calcium to form bones, iron to make blood, omega-3 fats to support brain development, and countless other nutrients essential for growth. The mother's body is beautifully designed to prioritize her baby, often drawing from her own nutrient stores when dietary intake falls short.
Then comes birth and the postpartum period, and the conversation was surprisingly brief.
We learned how remarkably nutrient-dense breast milk is and the many ways breastfeeding supports an infant's health, from providing optimal nutrition to helping reduce the risk of chronic disease later in life. We discussed that breastfeeding requires an additional 500–700 calories per day and that nursing helps the uterus contract back to its pre-pregnancy size.
And that was essentially it. Very little was said about the nutritional demands of the mother herself.
No one talked about how much nourishment a woman's body needs after growing a baby for nine months and giving birth. No one spoke about rebuilding nutrient stores, healing tissues, replacing blood loss, or supporting the immense hormonal shifts that take place after birth. I never once left a lecture thinking, “A postpartum mother needs special care. She needs special food.”
Whether birth is vaginal or by cesarean section, it is a tremendous physiological event. Blood is lost. Tissues stretch and need to heal. Hormones shift dramatically within hours. Sleep becomes fragmented. If breastfeeding, a mother's body continues to give, producing milk that is uniquely designed to nourish her baby. And yet, despite these incredible demands, postpartum nutrition is rarely discussed.
Instead, the messages I absorbed from our culture were much different. I remember seeing scenes in movies or posts from friends on social media celebrating the foods they had missed during pregnancy (the first sushi roll, the Italian sandwich, the glass of wine). It almost seemed as though postpartum nutrition was simply about finally eating all the foods that had been off-limits for the previous nine months.
Preparing for Birth, Not for Postpartum
When I became pregnant with my first child, I poured my heart into preparing for birth. I spent countless hours preparing for an unmedicated home birth. I read the books, listened to the podcasts, took the classes, and envisioned how I wanted to welcome my baby into the world. But I hardly gave a thought to what would happen afterward.
A dear friend gifted me a beautiful book, The First Forty Days: The Essential Art of Nourishing the New Mother. I never read it. I assumed having my mom nearby would be enough, that she would know exactly what to cook. I even thought I could simply hand her the book and she could make a few of the recipes. Looking back, that was an unrealistic expectation. The book draws heavily from traditional Chinese postpartum wisdom, featuring ingredients and cooking methods that were completely unfamiliar to my mom.
The irony wasn't lost on me later. I had prepared extensively for the day of birth, yet I had done almost nothing to prepare for the weeks that followed. It wasn't until I was living through postpartum that everything began to click. My body had accomplished one of the greatest physiological feats it would ever perform. It wasn't asking for quick convenience foods or cold meals grabbed on the go. It was asking for restoration and healing.
Our culture often celebrates "bouncing back." But as dietitians, we know that true recovery doesn't happen by restriction. It happens through nourishment. Healing requires energy. Building new tissue requires protein. Replacing blood loss requires iron and nutrients that support red blood cell production. Producing breast milk requires additional calories, fluids, vitamins, minerals, and healthy fats. Balancing hormones requires adequate fat intake, not deprivation.Food becomes one of the body's most powerful healing tools.
Common Threads Across Postpartum Traditions
About two years after my son's birth, when I finally had enough energy and mental space to be curious again, I started digging deeper. I couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing. As I began researching, reading, and studying, I realized that what was missing wasn't new knowledge, but the knowledge we had forgotten.
I wanted to learn more, so I enrolled in a nine-month postpartum practitioner training with Innate Traditions. This training filled gaps that my traditional nutrition education program had left open.
I learned that across the world, many ancestral traditions regard the postpartum period as sacred. Some call it the Sacred or Golden Window, a precious time when a mother's healing is carefully protected because how she is cared for during those first forty days may influence her health for years to come.
Although different cultures around the world have their own unique traditions, many of them share remarkably similar principles. Whether in Latin America, Asia, Africa, or Europe, generations of women developed practices to protect the mother's healing during the first forty days after birth.
These practices extend far beyond food. They include herbal baths, abdominal wrapping, warm oil massages, Closing of the Bones ceremonies, rest, community support, and rituals that honor the profound transition into motherhood.
While the foods, herbs, and rituals may differ, the wisdom behind them is strikingly consistent.
Warm, Nourishing Foods
Across cultures, warm, cooked meals are considered the cornerstone of postpartum recovery.
After birth, the body is healing tissues, producing breast milk, balancing hormones, replacing blood loss, and functioning on very little sleep. Every bit of energy matters. Warm, cooked foods are gentle on the digestive system, requiring less energy to break down and allowing more of the body's resources to be directed toward healing. Think of nourishing soups, bone broths, slow-cooked stews, porridges, and long-simmered meals that provide comfort while restoring strength.
Foods That Bring Warmth
Many traditional healing systems describe the postpartum body as being in a "cold" state after birth due to the significant loss of blood and body fluids. During the early weeks, mothers are also resting more and generating less body heat through movement.
To restore warmth and vitality, postpartum meals often include naturally warming ingredients such as fresh ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, garlic, and other aromatic spices. These ingredients not only add flavor but have traditionally been used to support circulation, digestion, and overall recovery.
Easy-to-Digest Meals
Pregnancy slows digestion. Birth further challenges the digestive system through changes in the abdominal muscles, hormonal shifts, and, for some women, perineal or abdominal healing. For this reason, many postpartum traditions emphasize foods that are easy to digest. Slow-cooked meats, tender vegetables, soft grains, and cooked leafy greens are favored because they require less digestive effort while providing abundant nourishment. Instead of fibrous vegetables such as kale, collards, or other members of the Brassica family, many traditions recommend gentler greens like spinach or Swiss chard during the early postpartum weeks.
Plenty of Warm Fluids
Hydration is essential after birth. Warm beverages are traditionally preferred to help replenish fluids, support milk production, and restore blood volume after delivery. These may include mineral-rich bone broths, nourishing herbal infusions such as nettle, alfalfa, or red raspberry leaf tea, as well as room-temperature juices like beet or prune juice, depending on the mother's needs and cultural traditions.
Foods Traditionally Avoided During the First Forty Days
Many postpartum traditions also recommend temporarily avoiding certain foods to make digestion as effortless as possible while the body heals.
During the first forty days, many traditions recommend limiting:
Raw foods, including raw fruits and vegetables, which are often considered harder to digest. Lightly cooking fruits and vegetables makes them gentler on the recovering digestive system.
Fried foods, which can feel heavy and place additional demands on digestion.
Cold foods and beverages, including iced drinks, ice cream, or foods straight from the refrigerator. Many cultures believe that warmth supports healing and helps restore balance to the postpartum body.
Highly processed foods, which often provide calories without the nutrient density needed for recovery. Instead, the focus is on whole, nourishing foods that support the mother's healing while providing the building blocks for quality breast milk.
Nourishment Beyond Nutrition
As a registered dietitian, I appreciate the science behind nutrition. But postpartum care has confirmed something that I already knew through my counseling sessions: that nourishment is about much more than nutrients alone.
It is also about warmth, rest, and being cared for. It is about receiving a meal that someone lovingly prepared, and feeling held by your family and community while your body recovers from one of the greatest transformations it will ever experience.
Perhaps that is the wisdom our ancestors understood so well. Food is never just food. Sometimes, it is one of the deepest expressions of love and care we can offer a new mother.
The postpartum period is an essential part of the birth journey. How we nourish a mother during this time has the power to influence her recovery, her energy, and her emotional well-being. It shapes not only how she experiences those first precious weeks with her baby and her transition into motherhood, but also her health for the next 40 years.
The Seeds of Remembrance
While I was pregnant with my first child, I was sitting in my hairdresser's chair, getting ready for my baby shower. Like me, she was born in Ecuador but has lived in the United States most of her life. As she worked, she casually asked me,
"Have you gotten everything ready for your postpartum herbal bath?"
I looked at her with complete confusion.
"My postpartum herbal bath?" I replied.
"Yes," she said matter-of-factly, as though every expectant mother would know exactly what she meant. I had never heard of such a thing.
When I got home, I immediately asked my mom. She had no idea what I was talking about. She asked relatives back in Ecuador. No one in my family seemed to remember. It felt as though an entire lineage of postpartum wisdom had quietly disappeared within just a few generations.
I decided to ask another friend and colleague (also from Ecuador), with whom I was working on a presentation called “Breaking the Cultural Code: Mastering Nutrition Counseling for the Top 11 Hispanic Groups in the United States.” Our presentation was on traditional Ecuadorian food and nutrition counseling. She knew exactly what I was asking. Her family remembered. They knew which herbs to gather, how to prepare them, and how the bath should be taken.
I asked her if she could gather all the herbs for a bath. She instead prepared the herbal bath for me. And five days after giving birth, as it is traditionally recommended, she and her husband brought into my house a big Tamalera with boiled herbs, that smelled divine and a bag of rose petals to be placed on top of the warm herbal water. And I was to pour the water over me.
When the warm herbal water touched my skin, it felt like the most luxurious bath I had ever experienced. It was one of the greatest gifts I have received. The bath wasn’t just about the herbs, but about the tradition of all the women who had come before me, and about the quiet reassurance that mothers were never meant to heal alone. I was stepping into something my ancestors once knew by heart.
My baby joined me afterwards and received a few splashes of herbal water. As the fragrant herbs surrounded us, tears streamed down my face. There was joy, gratitude, and a deep sense of remembrance. But also grief. How could we have forgotten this?
A few days later, that same friend gently reminded me, "You should have hen soup."
I asked if she would make it. She did. She arrived at my door carrying a pot of freshly made hen soup. It was the middle of a hot summer day. And somehow, that warm bowl of soup felt like exactly what my body had been craving. It felt like medicine, and I felt nourished and cared for.
Returning to My Roots
As an Ecuadorian woman, I became deeply curious about the postpartum traditions of my own culture. My search continued. Then, in what felt like perfect timing, life brought me an Indigenous ancestral midwife from Ecuador who was doing a workshop about traditional postpartum care here in NYC. I signed up right away.
Listening to her felt like coming home. She shared the postpartum wisdom that had been passed down through generations and had even compiled traditional recipes into a cookbook. I immediately bought it, grateful to have a tangible piece of my culture that I hope to incorporate during this postpartum journey as I prepare to welcome my second baby.
One recipe that I would love to share is: Hen soup. The soup my friend had brought me and felt like the most nourishing food I have ever had.
Across many cultures, nourishing broths are considered foundational postpartum foods. In Ecuador, hen soup has long been prepared for women after birth. Unlike the young chickens commonly sold in grocery stores, older hens have tougher meat and denser bones. When simmered slowly for hours, they release collagen, minerals, marrow, and rich flavor, creating a deeply nourishing broth that has supported generations of mothers through recovery.
Traditionally, the soup is made with white potatoes. This Indigenous midwife recommends replacing them with white sweet potatoes, which are gentler on digestion and provide additional nutrients. Fresh spinach is added near the end of cooking to further enrich the soup with vitamins and minerals that support healing. It’s simple, warm, and nourishing. Exactly what a recovering mother needs:
Ecuadorian Postpartum Hen Soup
Ingredients
2 liters water
2 pounds hen, cut into pieces (bone-in)
1 scallion
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
2 white sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
½ yellow carrot, chopped
½ cup chopped cilantro
½ cup cooked spinach, finely chopped
Salt to taste
Instructions
Place the hen and water in a large pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer for about 45 minutes.
Add the scallion, garlic, celery, carrot, and cilantro.
Add the diced white sweet potatoes and continue simmering until they become very tender and begin to naturally thicken the broth.
Stir in the chopped cooked spinach during the final few minutes of cooking.
Season with salt to taste and serve warm.
As I prepare to welcome my second baby, I find myself preparing very differently from the first time. Of course, I'm thinking about birth. But this time, I'm also preparing for what comes after. I'm gathering recipes, planning warm meals, collecting herbs, and arranging for rest.
I’m also arranging care that knows and remembers, such as midwives and doulas. Because postpartum is not simply about caring for a newborn. It is about caring for the woman who brought that new life into the world.
Perhaps the greatest gift we can offer a new mother is not another baby gadget or adorable outfit, but a warm bowl of soup simmering on the stove, a healing herbal bath prepared with loving hands, and a village that remembers to ask, "Who is caring for the mother?"
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