There are fourteen ligaments inside the pelvis that hold the pelvic organs in place. The uterus sits at the center of them, like a spider in a web. During pregnancy, the uterus stretches, and so do these fourteen ligaments, and so does the transverse abdominis or “corset muscle” and the fascia that sits on the outside of it like a tough and delicate nylon net, and so does the cartilage of the pelvis.
After the baby has been birthed, these tissues are bereft and lonely, floating around, looking for their home. Both Traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine systems characterize this state of affairs as “windy”, and it may be helpful to think of the fourteen ligaments this way, as ribbons waving in a cold wind. They are loosey-goosey, all over the place, and when you stand, they pool in the bottom of your pelvis, carrying your pelvic organs with them. Normally as tensile and flexible as the wires that support suspension bridges, they are more plastic than they will ever be, and they immediately begin the process of stiffening back up in whatever position they find themselves.
It may be helpful to think of your pelvis energetically as your inner child. It speaks to you in its quiet voice. It asks you for things that might be inconvenient. If you listen, you will hear the whisperings in your nervous system. The pelvis asks, and you say no, I am too busy. But it won’t stop. You may feel anxious, weepy, blue, profoundly lonely, irritable, or resentful. If you ignore the whisperings, they will get quieter and less direct—until they explode. PAY ATTENTION TO ME NOW: dysfunction and pain.
It might seem strange to think of your pelvis and its contents like your inner child. But both have this in common: their health, stability, and security are fundamental to your strength. Your wise body knows this, and will let them both nag you to the end of the earth to heal what needs healing.
Traditional “lying-in” or confinement periods include stringent rest—the mother does not get up from a reclined position, except to go to the bathroom. The mother typically wraps her belly from pubic bone to ribs. The mother’s pelvic organs are lifted manually through daily abdominal massage. The mother’s body, especially the abdomen, is kept warm, so that the tissues have plenty of healing blood flow. There are no trips to the park in sandals, or even to the kitchen in bare feet. It is a time of militant not-doing.
The consequences of doing during this time of not-doing are not abstract or woo, although they are often conceptualized that way to help us understand them. No, they are absolutely material. Organs need blood flow to function, and the organs in your pelvis are pretty important. You need to digest your food. You need to release all of your urine. You need the hormones your uterus and ovaries produce. You need to breathe fully and deeply, a process which is made possible by the stability of your abdominal canister. Your pelvic cradle—that woven half-egg of muscle that lines and supports the bony pelvis from the hip bones to the sacrum—needs to be strong and supple for bipedal walking. Ask any physical therapist what happens to the mechanics of the entire body when the pelvic floor is compromised. Then there is prolapse: your organs can fall through the hole in your pelvis, turning your vagina inside out as they do so. I’m describing the facts of these things, but I’m not describing the hardship and pain, which is significant, and can be life-destroying.
I don’t want my clients to be fearful that if they walk around, something terrible is going to happen. I want them to listen to the whispers. They are so easy to ignore.
Not everything old is good. In some places, lying-in traditions have been perverted, where instead of a time of rest the lying-in is seen as a time of isolation, in which the woman is unclean or profaned and must be kept away from all things for a period for society’s protection. I believe that these cultural narratives probably emerged when the wise women who developed them were done away with, and all that was left of them were the remnants of their practices—remnants which were carried forward superstitiously, divorced from the wisdom that created them. I also believe that we as human women are deeply affected by the grief of these perversions, and that is one reason why we rebel against this very short and luxurious chapter of rest—I’m fine, it’s not a deficiency, I won’t be isolated, I won’t be caged, I’m fine.
Yes, we are fine after we give birth. No, we do not require isolation and caging. We can release the insecurity of reacting against this version of misogynistic aggression by reclaiming these practices for ourselves. They never belonged to the ones who destroyed them. We are in charge of them and we know why we do them. Nobody can tell us that we lie-in because we are oppressed. We know that we lie-in because it is what our bodies need to heal from running the Boston Marathon twenty-four hours a day, for ten months, with a bowling ball nestled in our walking apparatus. It’s utterly practical.