“Jaapa: Bharat Has One Of The Oldest Postpartum Traditions, But It Is China That Has Built An Industry”, Swarajya, 5 Sep 2026.
“China, Korea, and Taiwan have drafted rules for their traditional postpartum care, and an entire industry has grown around them. In India, the jaapa who looks after a new mother during the forty days jaapa period is hired on a neighbour’s word, with no training or regulations.
Ananya came home on a Tuesday afternoon, thirty-six hours after her caesarean, carrying a six-day-old baby and a line of surgical staples under her navel.
Her mother-in-law was waiting at the door with a bowl of ajwain water and a schedule for the next forty days. Ananya would not step outside the flat. She would eat panjiri heavy with ghee and dry fruit, drink turmeric milk twice a day, and take an hour of hot-oil massage every morning from a woman hired on a neighbour’s recommendation. Cash only, no reference checking, no training verification.
None of this is unusual in an Indian household.
This is jaapa, and the word does double duty in Indian households. It is the confinement period itself, the six weeks in which a new mother is kept warm, fed and off her feet. It is also the woman who runs it.
The jaapa-wali moves in or comes daily. She bathes the baby and, in the first weeks after a caesarean, bathes the mother too. She cooks the postpartum diet, washes the clothes, handles the nights. She gives the oil massage to both bodies, the mother’s to help the abdominal wall find its way back. A good one knows when a feeding problem needs a doctor, and says so before anyone panics………….”
Read the full article at Swarajya.
