Pantang o pantang!?

Confinement period.. one could only hope that it'll go by quickly.. and then doomed with disappointment, whenever one count the remaining days to go without that walk in the fresh air that one has always have.

Why is it so important to jage pantang? Was it only one of Malay tradition? Was there a solid reason for all the pantang that we have to obey for 44days from the day we gave birth?

Yes.. I could have run the marathon the minute after the baby pop, and yes that was a bit too exaggerated..hehe. Although I do not feel tired and restless.. but I was told to lie down and rest.. reason being to let all the urat saraf that mengembang tak ingat to come back to its normal size.. or at least as close as it was, before birth. And I have 44 days of doing that.. well who's to complain? We deserve that break after all that hard work we've been through for 9 months plus Mommies! ;)

I know little about all the pantang reasons, but for all I care, I trust my mother and my MIL when they said the pantang is not for now, it is for your own good later in life. Take my mother for best example, she kept telling me how she never have her chance to really pantang during her past life. She had to do the laundry herself, cooking, cleaning and everything from the day after she gave birth.. not much rest at all..and no one to help her with (except my Dad.. but you know how 'helpful' a husband can be)

Then now.. she ended up with lots of sakit-sendi, sakit lutut, sakit segale lah... Comparing her, at 54 and with my MIL at 58, my MIL looks a lot healthier and energetic with less trouble with her body. And my MIL has got her fare chance of pantang.. so I guess it is true what they said about this later-life-thingy.

Believe me, I have tried to do some 'light' house chore 3 days after my confinement period.. that nite itself, I felt some serious miss-placed of my sendi kaki.. can't even stand properly. So after that day, I just simply close one eye to the dust on the floor, or to Myra's toys yang bersepah tak-ingat...sabor sabor.. few more weeks to go I'll say.

I was told one will lose so many million numbers of urat every time one gave birth (well, maybe i didn't get the number rite, but i know they are lots).. explaining the reason why after some years, woman with kids will look lot older than woman with no kids of the same age.. Now lets do some research on this topic and let all the other 'modern' woman out there know the reason and the necessity of these pantang to appreciate ourselves better.

::Pantang main air::

This it the part that I could hardly accept.. can't compute the reason why one can't play with water during their confinement period. My MIL even ask me to leave all my dirty dishes after every meal.. I was uncomfortable to let her clean my dirty dishes, but do as she said.. out of respect. Maybe, logical reason to this pantang is to avoid playing with cold temperature water.. I know it is bad to let yourself being expose to cold air. So, what we should do, is bath and clean with warm water.

::Pantang larang makan::

I guess, this is the most important subject of all pantang. Why some food is good and some are bad? Luckily, both my mother and MIL are not entirely strict on the food subject. They will think of reason for every food, what'll heat up the body (which is good) and what will cool down the body (which is bad). But they never really follow that rule of no watery-dish. So takdela asek makan food yg bakar-bakar jer.. and I even ended up with lots of yummy pantang food, even had Lamb Beriayani the other day! :)

Note: Some good food during confinement includes Ikan Tenggiri, Ikan Bilis, Daging, Ayam & Telur (after a week or lepas wound dah kering), Daun Pegaga, Black Pepper and Ginger. Avoid seafood, timun.

::Pantang berjalan::

Yeah, heard about people who had to do the pengantin-walk during their entire pantang-time. Logical reason that I could think of is to avoid that wound to be worsen.

And one should never do too much of walking, need to lie down and rest more. I know it's killing-us-modern-mom that used to berjalan sane sini (nak nak at these season.. when lots of outdoor activities are happening and lots of clearance sale! Urghh ) but this is to avoid Bentan. Heard of that word before? What is Bentan? Well, from my understanding and through the experience of my sister-yg-degil, Bentan is when one could not walk, shivering and felt cold inside and sometime even demam.

So to make thing easier, just sacrifice your desire to let loose of boredom at home by avoiding that unnecessary outing. Bile dah terkena baru nak terase.. tapi dah terlambat. Prevention is always better than cure (So I said to my bored self)

Hurm.. stakat ni je what I could think of about the pantang-pantang. I needed to put it on black and white for my future reference, mane la tau.. kalau umur panjang.. next time it will be my turn to jage my own daughter during her confinement period pulak, and I don't want to be blur and hopeless on the subject.

Until then.. happy berpantang to myself! (Errr.. happy ke? hehe 3 weeks to go huuuu)