Since young I was told a dozen of old wives’ tale… most of them I took it lightly and simply ignored it, or justified them with a scientific reasons. Ever since I am pregnant, the “elderly” in our family starts to imply a lot of old wives’ “rules”. Just when I finally feel more relieve after delivery (as in breaking any “rules” won’t hurt baby in any way now, nor get blamed for nothing just in case the “rules” are crap in the first place), I realised I am just jumping into the fire from the frying pan!

According to “elderly” (whom every “elderly” in our family who told me need to listen, but none of them know who is this “elder’), during confinement, you are:

• not supposed to wash your hair – for the whole month
• not supposed to wash your hands
• not supposed to touch/wash/shower un-boiled tap water (warm or cold)
• not supposed to drink plain water (boiled or not boiled)
• not supposed to walk “barefooted” on the floor
• not supposed to eat porridge
• not supposed to eat bread with yeast
• not supposed to eat vegetables/fruits
• not supposed to get in aircon environment (whether the air is blowing direct or indirectly at you)
• sleep a lot/lie on the bed
• not supposed to eat female chicken
• you must eat a lot of (fattening) food (especially all the intestine of the pig… poor pig!)
• you must wear long sleeve and long pants
• baby is crying because she is hungry (and that seems to be the only reason as I was always questioned with this only possibility whenever the baby cry)
• baby full month celebration must be held before the full month actual day (when the mother is still confined in her confinement month and is expected to smell of herbs or smell of non showering/washed hair for the past one month)

(Note that above rules are those enforce in my house only, it excludes a lot of other “rules” as those are not belief of the “elderly” in our family.)

Goodness sake! I nearly go crazy when the “elderly” & confinement nanny try to confine me with these “elderly sayings” and feel so depress I cried a couple of times… but eventually I decided to go easy on my life and find workarounds to make my confined life more bearable.

Seriously, after going through this confinement (countdown! 21 days have passed and counting), I find that pregnancy and delivery is nothing as suffering as confinement. If there is a reason why I won’t get pregnant anymore, confinement is the core reason for me.