Postpartum Hypertension: A silent menace
Mrs. S had an uneventful journey of pregnancy and a joyous childbirth experience. She became the mother to a healthy baby girl M. She was discharged home on third day.
Like any new mom, she took a while to settle into the routine with her baby and herself. This was a hectic phase although she was surrounded by a loving and supportive family. A few days into being at home she started feeling weak and exhausted. This was considered a normal part of a new mom’s journey. She was asked to rest and ignore it. She also noticed increasing swelling of her legs.
On the seventh day post delivery she started having a niggly headache. Tiredness, weakness, headache, low mood: all normal she was told. Home remedies, the occasional paracetamol was the solution.
Postpartum Then and Now
The postpartum period is a time where women are dealing with dual burden of recovery from childbirth and taking on multiple new roles. While great strides in antepartum and intrapartum care have been achieved worldwide; there has been a comparative lack of attention to the post-partum period. Which is counter-intuitive since a woman must spend her lifetime in this period as compared to the short duration of pregnancy and delivery.
However, this has not always been the case. Historically, our Indian culture has respected and cared for postpartum mothers far better than what we do today despite advances in modern medicine. They had specific traditional practices to make sure there is effective recovery from childbirth and preservation of long-term health.
Birth Institute student from Rochester, Maya D’Costa (it needed the Western Culture to recognize this !!!), gives us insight into the traditional ways women are supported during the postpartum period in India. Her paper states that in India, across cultures, the postpartum period was given much emphasis. After childbirth, women stay at home for approximately 6 weeks/40 days (a period of 'confinement ‘) This promotes recovery of mother, helps in establishing bonding and promoting breastfeeding.