Bone broth for Postpartum Healing

Bone broth for Postpartum Healing
I’ve spent the day making bone broth to put in my freezer for safe keeping until after I have this new little one in a few weeks. I always have a stash of bone broth for when we aren't feeling well. I also add it to make rice or other grains or of course make yummy soups! 
Today’s work made about 100oz of pork bone broth. I make it easy on myself, I save bones from dinners in a gallon bag in the freezer. When it’s full, (in this case two bags because we’ve had lots of pork bones from our half hog we bought last fall) I drop it in the instant pot. Cover with filtered water, add salt, pepper and a couple flush of apple cider vinegar. And in about 2 hours delicious golden broth. I actually did two round with these bones to make this much (see picture!)

here’s an excerpt from my case reflection to earn my Pregnancy & Postpartum Physical Therapy Certification:

“She was instructed to continue to log roll for bed mobility and to use a pillow to splint for coughing and sneezing. She was educated, and issued written resources on nutrition for postpartum healing including nourishing chicken soup with bone broth and collagen smoothies. There is a lack of evidence which supports specifically advising collagen supplementation postpartum, but there is also no evidence that shows it’s detrimental and anecdotally we see improved outcomes when mothers are nourished in the postpartum period. There is cultural wisdom in this practice from Asian ethnicities and their confinement period traditions.”

I truly believe there’s some ancient wisdom that we’ve lost when it comes to postpartum recovery, but these are the two scientific articles are the ones I read to support my last sentence:
  1. Fok D, Aris IM, Ho J, et al. A Comparison of Practices During the Confinement Period among Chinese, Malay, and Indian Mothers in Singapore. Birth. 2016;43(3):247-254. doi:10.1111/birt.12233
  2. Chen LW, Low YL, Fok D, et al. Dietary changes during pregnancy and the postpartum period in Singaporean Chinese, Malay and Indian women: the GUSTO birth cohort study. Public Health Nutr. 2014;17(9):1930-1938. doi:10.1017/S1368980013001730

And this is my favorite blog post I give to all my postpartum patients. The one that started me down this path! Now I’ve also read the Nourishing Traditions books which really are the OG bone broth resources. 

So there you go! My quick round up all about bone broth. Enjoy!