Women’s health care during postpartum: The practice and beliefs

Women always take care of their health during postpartum to restore good health and to avoid future ill health both for mothers and babies. Using the Malay cultural perspective, this paper has two main objectives. First, to analyse the health care practices that Malay women used during confinement. Second, to interpret the beliefs that influenced their health care practices. The discussion is based on data collected through in-depth interviews with 30 Malay informants and four midwives as key informants in Kelantan in 2007 and several short follow-up in 2009 and 2010. The analyses revealed about Malay concept of hot and cold, body equilibrium, the symbolism of blood, the metaphors of openness and obstruction and spiritual being, influence their health care practices during the confinement. They believed that their bodies are dirty due to baby formation during pregnancy and cold since they lose a lot of blood during delivery. During the confinement, Malay women in Kelantan practices ritual bathing (mandi teresak), bedian, massage, bertungku, sexual avoidence, food abstinence, resting, bebekum and take hot medicines.