Speaking as someone who's wife has just given birth for the second time, I can contest that this practice of not overly soaping up or using shampoo and generally avoiding any beautifying cosmetics for a month after giving birth is not only baffling and potentially inviting of illness but is also.......kind of fu**ing gross. My kid's only two weeks old and shits like a horse but I swear the missus is beginning to smell worse. I'm stuck between a bawling baby and a bag lady. Life just don't get no better than this.

Yeah, it's an absolute shit tradition that probably ends up weakening the woman more than just normal recovery. I guess weakening women plays right into the hands of most Chinese men.

This is why you need to make sure you don't marry a backwards thinking country bumpkin beforehand. 

Whatever happened to the times when a women would give birth and go back to work the following week?   Last year a read "The Good Earth", which is a novel covering 3 generations of a Chinese family in the countryside.  In the story, a woman gave birth in the fields, took the child home and cooked dinner for her family.  Now that's a wife.

Right, I also couldn't believe it when I heard of it. Some traditions may be good but they start being other thing when people is not rational about what is really good or bad for themselves.

Can you imagine if we still followed some traditions of the Neanderthal just because they did it during hundreds or thousands years? I mean, in case we evolved from them.

Science, medicine, minds and everything evolves, is everyone's choice to evolve o remain in the past, of course always being rational.

Yes a backward thinking tradition.  My ex wife a  Taiwanese who grew up and educated in the  US also went through this along with nanny cooking some funking smelling food.   After one week of no showering. I said enough is enough!  Perhaps this may be one reason marriage only last three years 

Guys. You are only thinking about the smell. What about the lack of physical activity. The new mother will recover slower and in turn be a crappier mother for that. 

I agree, it's not good for the mother and especially not the baby.

But I can understand the power of tradition, so I am not totally against it. Just so long as the house is clean, and the new mum jumps into the shower for a quick wash while her mother is down the market buying another chicken to sacrifice.

For us it's nonsense, but for people who believe in it, it's powerful stuff.

In my own case, my wife was only allowed to wash in cold boiled water mixed with a specific home made strong plum wine. There was gallons of the stuff in the house.

Oh yes, I slept well that month.

Even Godzilla would not have been able to raise me from my plum wine slumber

My wife insist on one week of this tradition, because "it's an important tradition". Working on not having any of this the day MiniMe will be amongst us. Showers from day one, a walk outside everyday if the weather is ok for that, while I take care of the baby.

Does anyone's wife or girlfriend want to rest for the first 3 months of pregnancy? This is also one of the many unusual traditions. I cannot understand just why some want to rest for the first 3 months. I have explained that the last 3 month should be more important, but who listens!

My sister in law didn't wash for a month and she didn't even understand that she should wash her child. That kid was so dirty. I finally suggested they give her a bath.

What truly baffles me is how otherwise educated and sensible people still subscribe to this yuezi crap. I had a a Chinese girl explain to me that following this barbaric ritual would improve the whole body's health - even in areas completely unrelated to child bearing.  Just witch doctor nonsense on a mass scale....

I had the yuezi talk with my fiancee, and she agreed that it's stupid, so yeah great. Although she said she doesn't want to drink cold liquids during the first month which is fair enough.

Tradition... how to avoid progress 

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/11/china/chinese-postpartum-confinement/i...