Postnatal Care Practices among the Malays, Chinese and Indians: A Comparison

¹ Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia
² Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia

Abstract

In Malaysia, each race has its own traditional medicine practice which has existed for hundreds of years before the coming of modern medicine. Also, each race has many kinds of practices that had been around maintaining the health care of the respective community. All of these races or ethnic groups regard that it is very important for new mothers to be nursed back to health and thus each has its own specific and special postnatal or maternity care. The treatment during the postnatal or confinement period is generally considered to be good and safe and can help the new mother to gain back her health to the pre-pregnancy status. It is also belief that the ingredients used are natural and usually do not caused harm to the mother’s condition. Hence, this paper is the result of the study on the traditional postnatal care practiced by the Malay, Chinese and Indian communities in Malaysia. This study was conducted through interviews and review of literature. The results obtained showed that there are a variety of treatments and practices during postnatal or confinement period for each of the race. In addition, traditional postnatal care during confinement are still being sought after and followed by the different races in Malaysia.