How many times have you heard from your parents, relatives, friends and grandparents that you must or mustn’t do something with your baby because that’s how it’s done?
The most popular is the 40-day rule. This custom means a ban on mother and child leaving the house until exactly 40 days have passed. And during that same period, also according to custom, it is proper for everyone to come and see the baby and bring gifts.
I always wondered: why?
Many supporters of this custom can’t explain why it is so. They simply tell you: that’s how it’s done, or that’s how our elders did it, that’s how we did it, so you have to as well. Hardly anyone can give the “real” reason.
Sofia’s great-grandmother came from Serbia to be with her great-granddaughter, not to lecture anyone on how things should or shouldn’t be done.
These reasons weren’t good enough for me, so I tried to find out the roots of this belief from the person closest to me who was best placed to help me unravel this myth: my grandmother. She says people believe that the mother will lose her milk if she leaves the house before that time. And from my other grandmother I heard the version that someone will put the evil eye on the baby and/or the mother if they are seen outside their own yard.
These are all beliefs. And not a trace of an argument that could convince me this custom is right.
Personally, several aspects of this custom bother me a lot.
The first is that someone forbids you to go out into the fresh air! I personally can’t imagine being stuck indoors for more than a few days. You can read my view on when and why it is important to go out with your baby in the post Walks With a Newborn: When to Start?
On the other hand, I understand that a hundred or more years ago the situation was very different. Not everyone had access to hygienic conditions for bringing a baby into the world (the cutting of the umbilical cord, the placenta and remains of it that could stay inside the woman, and a thousand other complications). There were many more births with, sadly, fatal consequences for both mother and child.
So people had to make up for their lack of knowledge and arguments with beliefs.
My grandmother also told me how her mother (my great-grandmother), after every birth (there were four), was made to lie on straw on the floor instead of a proper bed, and was not allowed to sit and eat at the table with the rest of the household, but had to eat on the floor too, because to them she was unclean. That shocked me and offended me as a woman! But that’s how it was. Does that mean it should still be that way today? That we should cling at any cost to things just because they were once practised? Of course not!
It is true that after giving birth a woman “cleanses”, that is, bleeds for almost exactly six weeks, or 40 days. And I believe that this made it easier to protect women from all kinds of possible infections by keeping them in the “safety” of their homes.
All of that is true, but this is the 21st century. Science has come a looong way. Women give birth in hygienic conditions, under professional supervision, and so the chances of complications of that kind are much lower than they used to be.
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against our traditions, I respect and love them, but only when they make sense and don’t endanger anyone’s health.
But the idea of a new mother being a prisoner in her own home together with her baby is not acceptable to me. A baby needs to get used to the world as it is and needs to breathe fresh air (no matter what season it was born in).
Visitors in the First 40 Days
The baby or the mother are less likely to catch anything if they get a bit of fresh air every day than if one of the many guests parading through the newborn’s home brings in an infection. Because it is also customary for as many people as possible to see the baby in exactly those first 40 days.
And believe me, in those first few weeks new parents desperately need to get to know their baby, to adjust to a completely new life and, of course, to sleep. They are definitely not in the mood to tidy up and serve crowds of guests, even if custom demands it.
Living far away from all your relatives has its good sides too, and one of them is exactly that you don’t have to follow this custom. Despite plenty of advice, I was not a prisoner in my own home for 40 days, and we were not obliged to receive new guests every weekend. What I needed most back then was rest and getting to know my baby’s needs, which is what I had, and I am incredibly happy about it.
So, if you are still planning to visit a mother and baby in the first 40 days after the birth, as custom dictates, better offer to help around the house than expect to be entertained and lecture them on how things should or shouldn’t be done. That will mean far more to new parents than strictly sticking to any custom with the explanation that that’s how it’s done.
Warmly,
S-Mama
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