Abdominal Binding After Childbirth

Although abdominal binding has seen a resurgence of interest amongst women across Western countries in recent years, it’s actually a very ancient practice with roots in many cultures across the globe.

 Sometimes it’s been a practice just handed down from mother to daughter; in other places it’s been a ritual part of the post-birthing period, complete with the use of oils and herbs as part of a ceremony.

As well as getting a mother on the way to a flatter stomach again, and guard against post-birth stretch marks, abdominal binding has also been used to prevent hernia, and shift misplaced organs when the possibility of surgical help has been non-existent. Binding also helps give back support while you’re lifting all those things which you suddenly need once your baby has arrived!

In the Americas, the Mayans of Mexico had the binding put on by the midwife as her last duty after seeing to the birth, following a massage which helped to restore the organs to their correct position. In the final stage of the massage process, another female relative (usually the mother-in-law) helped the midwife by laying the binder over the abdomen and they would pass the ends to each other under the small of the new mother’s back. The binder was cinched around the pelvis as tightly as the woman can stand it. Amongst Hispanic women today throughout the Americas, it is still common, as it has been for hundreds of years, to wear the faja - which means ‘girdle’ - after birth.

In Japan by contrast, although some women just relied on tightening the sash traditionally worn with the kimono, others went through a full ceremony where they were wrapped with a special cloth called a sarashi, and the spirits of the ancients were invoked to help aid recovery from the birth. This shows the importance of the practice in a country which likes to ritualise all sorts of things, including the tea ceremony. Elsewhere in Asia, Hmong women of Vietnam and Laos still practise the abdominal binding handed down from their ancestors. In their case this was particularly to avoid feeling bloated and huge after meals

In the tribes of southern Africa, the practice of using binders was known as bopha isisu, which literally means ‘wrapping the stomach’, which sounds more comforting somehow!

In some cultures, for example the Philippines, women have extended the concept of binding, and the wrapping covers the hips as well as the abdomen. This probably helps with the pelvic floor, which can be severely distended by the birth process. In olden times the binding was normally put on first by a hilot (midwife) who would teach the mother how to do this for herself thereafter.

Lastly, in Java (Indonesia), binding was normally done with the main aim of shrinking the distended womb. At the end of a massage session following birth, herbs would be placed on the stomach and the womb would be held in place by the new binding, which would stretch from just below the bust to below the crotch, and the binding was traditionally used for 40 days.