The postpartum confinement period is also a great time for mothers to indulge in delicious food. Husbands, mothers-in-law, mothers… family members take turns delivering nutritious and recovery-friendly food. While there's no shortage of delicious meals every day, eating too much can become tiresome, so many mothers think of fruit. However, this request is often met with a ruthless rejection from some elders.
Traditional beliefs hold that fruit is "cold" and should not be consumed during the postpartum period, as it is thought to chill the mother's body and cause diarrhea in breastfed babies. With the advancement of medicine, many old postpartum customs have been proven wrong. So, can you really eat fruit during the postpartum period?
Eating fruits and vegetables during the postpartum period has multiple benefits. Vitamin C has a miraculous effect on promoting wound recovery. The rich vitamin C in fruits and vegetables has a magical effect on stopping bleeding and promoting wound healing, which is even more beneficial for the mother's physical recovery.
Get your bowels moving to improve postpartum constipation. Bowel movements slow down during the postpartum period, easily causing constipation or difficulty with bowel movements, which affects the body's detoxification. The large amount of dietary fiber in fruits and vegetables can effectively promote intestinal peristalsis, aid in bowel movements, and reduce discomfort for new mothers.
Whet your appetite and promote milk secretion. The sweet and sour taste of fruit can stimulate the taste buds to boost appetite, allowing new mothers to eat more happily. Milk secretion requires a variety of vitamins and minerals, and fruit can also promote lactation, helping mothers to feed their babies.
So, how should you eat fruit after giving birth?
Let's listen to what the experts have to say:
"Cold," "Cool," "Warm," and "Hot" refer to the four natures of fruits. Therefore, new mothers should choose fruits according to their own body constitution.
Cold fruits have a significant effect of clearing heat and reducing fire. They can lower the body's heat and decrease its metabolic rate. Therefore, mothers should avoid cold foods and refrain from eating cooling fruits like watermelon, oranges, strawberries, coconuts, muskmelons, mangoes, persimmons, and oranges.
In contrast to cold, hot fruits can dispel cold, tonify deficiency, and increase the body's metabolic rate and heat. Representative examples of this type include longan, lychee, and peaches.
Neutral fruits whet the appetite, strengthen the spleen, tonify deficiency, are easy to digest, and can be consumed long-term. Representative examples include apples, grapes, and lemons.
Especially recommended are these ten health-boosting fruits
to help mothers eat deliciously and healthily:
1. Durian
A favorite of Crown Princess Peng Ge, this fruit, despite its pungent smell, is crowned the "King of Fruits" for its wonderful taste and rich nutrition! Durian is abundant in Southeast Asia. It is sweet and hot in nature, known for strengthening yang and aiding fire, with good effects on promoting body temperature and improving blood circulation. Postpartum deficiency and coldness can be addressed by consuming it. However, durian is not easy to digest. Eating too much can lead to "internal heat" (its heat can be balanced by eating it with mangosteen), so it should not be overindulged in. Mothers who have had a C-section and are prone to small bowel adhesions should be cautious.
2. Longan (Guiyuan)
Sweet and warm in nature, produced in areas like Guangdong and Guangxi. It benefits the heart and spleen, calms the mind, and nourishes the blood, making it a great tonic. Mothers who are physically weak postpartum can eat some fresh longan or dried longan to supplement the qi of the spleen and stomach and address insufficient heart blood. Longan and egg drop soup is delicious and easy to make, making it excellent for postpartum recovery.
3. Hawthorn
Sweet and sour, warm in nature. Hawthorn is rich in vitamins and minerals, and contains a large amount of hawthorn acid and citric acid. It can promote saliva production to quench thirst, invigorate blood to resolve stasis, help expel uterine blood stasis, and reduce abdominal pain. At the same time, hawthorn whets the appetite and strengthens the spleen. Eating it in moderation can boost the mother's appetite and aid digestion.
4. Olive
Sweet, slightly sour and astringent, neutral in nature. It has the effects of clearing heat and detoxifying, and promoting saliva production to quench thirst. Pregnant and breastfeeding women who often eat olives may help their babies become smarter.
5. Grape
Sweet and sour, neutral in nature. It has the effects of nourishing qi and blood, strengthening muscles and bones, and promoting urination. Due to its rich iron content, it has a blood-tonifying effect. When made into raisins, the iron content is even higher, making it a good iron-supplementing food. Regular consumption can eliminate fatigue and listlessness, and resolve symptoms of weight loss. After excessive blood loss postpartum, grapes can be eaten to replenish blood.
6. Papaya
Sweet and neutral in nature, produced in southern China. It has a wide range of benefits, including lowering blood pressure, detoxifying, reducing swelling, expelling parasites, aiding lactation, firming the breasts, and reducing fat. Papaya contains an enzyme called papain, which has a high ability to break down protein. Foods like fish, meat, and eggs can be broken down into nutrients easily absorbed by the human body in a very short time, directly stimulating the mother's mammary glands to secrete milk. Therefore, papaya is also used as a galactagogue. If postpartum milk is scanty or does not flow, papaya can be stewed with fish and eaten.
7. Pineapple
Sweet and sour, neutral in nature, produced in Guangdong and Guangxi. It has the effects of promoting saliva production to quench thirst, aiding digestion, stopping diarrhea, and promoting urination. It is rich in vitamin B1, which can eliminate fatigue, increase appetite, and benefit postpartum recovery.
8. Apple
Sweet, neutral and slightly cool in nature. It has the effects of promoting saliva production, relieving summer heat, and whetting the appetite. Its rich fiber content can promote digestion and intestinal wall movement, reducing constipation.
9. Banana
Sweet, cold in nature. It has the effects of clearing heat and moistening the intestines. Eating bananas postpartum can improve mood, calm the mind and aid sleep, and even reduce the sensation of pain. The large amount of fiber and iron in bananas has a laxative and blood-tonifying effect, which can effectively improve constipation caused by prolonged bed rest and poor intestinal peristalsis. However, due to its cold nature, it should not be eaten in large quantities daily. Remember to blanch it in hot water before eating.
10. Kiwi
Sweet and cold in nature, extremely high in vitamin C. It has the effects of reducing fever, quenching thirst, promoting urination, and increasing milk secretion. Regular consumption can strengthen the immune system and is beneficial for recovery after a C-section. Because of its cold nature, it should be blanched in hot water before eating, and one per day is appropriate.
Key things to remember about eating fruit during the postpartum period
1. Pay attention to cleanliness. Thoroughly wash the fruit or peel it before eating to avoid diarrhea.
2. Don't overindulge in fruit out of greed. You can eat fruit after meals or between meals to avoid overburdening the digestive tract.
3. Avoid eating too many fruits that are overly cooling or cold, as overly cold food is not beneficial to the spleen, stomach, or uterus.
4. Don't eat fruit that is too cold. If the fruit has just come out of the refrigerator, let it sit at room temperature for a while before eating. To prevent the fruit from being too cold, you can also cut it into pieces and blanch it in boiling water before eating, but do not cook it, so as not to destroy the vitamins in the fruit.