Week 1 of Charles' life: "Omugwo Starts"

So what happened in week one? I ate lots of yam peppered soup; I drank lots of palm wine like a drunkard; and my late daily all night vigil started. Baby Akachukwu Charles woke up every one half to two hours to breastfeed. Also both of my legs also got swollen as post partum symptoms that I could barely work. This happens because of fluid imbalance and one of the functions of the yam peppered soup is to make this disappear. Did I mention that I started doing salt water sit baths? Yeah, you are expected to continue the sit baths daily for the next two to three weeks.

The week one of Akachukwu's life was filled with joy with lots of food to eat though and it made me to tolerate all the negatives I mentioned above. This food and drinks wrapped with joy makes you completely forget the negatives you are going through. You will even forget that you passed through labor.

I know some would be asking; "what the hell is omugwo? When a lady gives birth, a close member of her family comes to take care of mother and child. That close family member is usually the mother or mother-in-law of the lady. This act is called omugwo.
Omugwo has a sweet and savory side. The sweet thing about omugwo is that you get to eat lots of specially made dishes for you:). Now the bad; get ready to keep awake at night with your baby. Your sleeping pattern automatically changes because most babies tend to wake up every two hours at night to breastfeed.

After being discharged from the hospital, omugwo food awaited us at home. My husband had already bought tubers of yam while my dad brought dried fish and crayfish. Then there was a keg of fresh palmwine. For those that don't know, palmwine plays a significant role for first time moms in breast milk expression. I will further explain this in my upcoming posts.

There is a popular Nigerian food served to a woman that just gave birth and it's particularly unique to the Igbo culture. It's called "ji mmiri oku", translated in English to mean yam peppered soup. Other tribes have their own post-partum meals and I would like others to comment on their own tribal post partum foods. Yep w'all here to learn. Yam peppered soup (jim mmiri oku) has other scientifically proven benefits which I will write on in my next posts.

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