Postpartum First Week Recipes
Release time : 03/09/2025 09:30:01
During childbirth, the woman will consume a lot of physical energy and blood, which can make her body weak. She may also experience loss of appetite.
This is very detrimental to the recovery of the mother's body, the supplementation of nutrition and the generation of milk. Therefore, the diet plan for the first week must take these factors into account.
Let's take a look at the first week's meal plan together.
The first week postpartum diet for a new mother is crucial as it involves significant physical and blood loss during childbirth, necessitating recovery through dietary adjustments.
Postpartum, the mother requires nutrition to provide milk to her baby. Therefore, both physical and nutritional health of the mother are very important.
This depends on the first week's diet plan for new mothers.
The following is a recipe for the first week based on normal delivery of women with light physical strength. This recipe is based on ensuring the daily intake of nutrients and eating rehabilitation food with certain functions to help the maternal exhaust, heal wounds, contract the uterus, promote blood circulation and eliminate obstruction, and promote the discharge of lochia.
The staple and non-staple foods are very monotonous this week, and biochemical soup, sesame oil liver, coix rice, red bean rice and efficacy drinks must be eaten every day. This food arrangement can better exert the efficacy of the food.
1. Staple food: You must eat 1 serving of coix rice per day, and you can choose appropriate amount of red bean rice (porridge), white rice (porridge), warm glutinous rice oil rice, and sweet glutinous rice porridge (rice) with soothing effects.
2. Non-staple foods: You must eat 1 serving of sesame oil liver per day, sesame oil pig heart, sesame oil fish, etc. Due to differences in the place where the pregnant woman lives, the common fish used in the first week can be selected from crucian carp, loach, and yellow croaker, which have a soothing effect.
No vegetables this week.
3. Add meals: black bean and red bean dishes with soothing effects, red bean soup, sunflower seeds, and hazelnuts.
4. Energy and food quantity: The daily energy intake of pregnant women is about 2600kcal, and the staple food per meal is about 100 grams (raw). It is about 1 and a half bowls of rice to two bowls of rice or 2 bowls of porridge. The total daily weight of grain (including beans) is 250 to 400 grams; animal food (Pig liver, fish, pig heart, eggs, etc.) A total of 150 to 200 grams per day. Because pig liver is rich in vitamin A, if ingested too much, it will cause vitamin A poisoning. Therefore, the daily intake of pig liver is 20 to 50 grams; fruits should not be too much this week, within 20 grams; soup water should not be 800 to 1,200 milliliters per day; black sesame oil and rice wine should not be too much this week, 25 grams per day; cooking salt should be about 2 grams; brown sugar should be 30 grams per day.
The normal delivery process of pregnant women is a process that consumes a lot of physical strength, loses a lot of blood, and weakens gastrointestinal function. Pregnant women often experience gastrointestinal weakness, indigestion, and loss of appetite after childbirth.
Generally, a pregnant woman can recover through food supplementation within the first week after childbirth.
So what should a pregnant woman eat for the first week? In the first week after delivery, pregnant women should eat a soothing, light, easily digestible, and special meal for confinement.
Generally speaking, it takes about 24 hours for pregnant women to recover their gastrointestinal function after postpartum surgery, and it is not advisable to eat before gastrointestinal function is restored.
Upon the restoration of the gastrointestinal function in the expectant mother, it is advisable to provide a liquid diet for one day, such as egg soup or rice soup. It is also necessary to avoid foods that may cause bloating, including milk, soy milk, and large amounts of sugar.
After the first 2 days postpartum, once intestinal gas has cleared, you can gradually transition to a semi-liquid diet for 1 to 2 days. This includes foods like thin porridge, soup noodles, and wontons, which are simple, nutritious, and easy to prepare.
Then, we transition back to a regular diet.
1. Initially, tonic soups such as chicken, mutton, and fish broth can be consumed for replenishment, but alcohol should not be added.
(Make sure to skim off the greasy fat from the soup.) 2. Liver is beneficial for eliminating menstrual blood and nourishing the blood, making it an ideal solid food choice for new mothers.
3. Sweets can also help expel lochia.
4. For women with poor uterine contraction, oleaginous oil can be taken to help smooth muscle contraction and improve constipation.
5. Fish, Vitamin C can aid in wound healing.
6. Due to high blood loss, pregnant women should eat more iron-containing foods to replenish their blood.
7. Medicinal diet supplements can be added with Chinese medicinal materials such as astragalus, wolfberry, and red dates.
What fish is good for pregnant women to eat in the first week? It is well known that pregnant women need to consume a lot of physical strength during childbirth and production and will bleed a lot. After childbirth, the body of pregnant women is relatively weak and needs a period of recuperation before their bodies can recover.
In the recuperation and conditioning of pregnant women, the diet for the first week of the pregnant woman is particularly important.
Pregnant women can eat meat such as chicken and fish for supplements, and the effect is better.
There are many types of fish, so what fish should a pregnant woman eat for the first week? Let Xiaobian take all moms and friends to have a look.
1. Crucian carp: It has the functions of replenishing qi and strengthening the spleen, promoting water and swelling, clearing heat and detoxification, and dredging channels and lowering milk.
For patients with ascites, fresh crucian carp and red bean are boiled together in soup and taken, which has curative effect.
Fermented with live carp and pig's feet, consumed with the soup, it can cure insufficient milk in new mothers.
Cod liver oil is beneficial to the cardiovascular function and can reduce blood viscosity, promote blood circulation.
2. Black fish: Black fish meat contains protein, fat, 18 kinds of amino acids, etc., and also contains essential calcium, phosphorus, iron and multiple vitamins. It is suitable for physical weakness, hypoproteinemia, spleen and stomach qi deficiency, malnutrition, anemia If eaten by people with it is helpful to pregnant women.
3. Carp: It has functions such as strengthening the spleen, promoting digestion and appetite, diuresis, reducing swelling, cough relief, asthma control, and fetal safety and breast milk secretion, as well as detoxifying properties.
Fish and winter melon, and scallion whites cooked into a soup, are used to treat nephritis and edema.
Use live carp and pork feet to make soup, which can be consumed by pregnant women with reduced milk secretion.
Fish and milkweed powder are boiled in a pot of water to treat coughs and asthma.
What fruits are good for the first week of a new mother's diet? In our daily lives, we always have a preference for eating fruits to supplement nutrition.
Some elderly people say that fruits are cold and unfit for consumption by women in childbirth.
But in fact, pregnant women can eat fruits after childbirth, but they must eat the right fruits.
Postpartum mothers should eat fruits, which can not only meet the nutritional needs of postpartum women, effectively help postpartum women absorb and digest nutrients, appropriately supplement vitamins and minerals, but also play a certain special medical role, help postpartum women's health.
1. What fruits are good for the mother in her first week?: Bananas.
Bananas contain a large amount of cellulose and iron, which can promote bowel movements and enrich the blood.
Postpartum women often prefer to rest in bed, with poor gastrointestinal motility, leading to frequent constipation.
Adding to the fact that postpartum bleeding is quite significant, it is necessary to replenish blood. Iron is one of the main ingredients in blood production, so consuming more bananas can prevent postpartum constipation and postpartum anemia.
The iron intake of the postpartum woman is more, and the iron in the breast milk is also more, which has a certain help effect on preventing infant anemia.
What fruit is good for the mother in the first week? Red dates.
Red dates contain the most vitamin C and also contain a large amount of glucose and protein.
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that red dates are the best tonic among fruits. They have the effects of replenishing the spleen and activating the stomach, replenishing qi and promoting fluid production, regulating blood vessels, and resolving all poisons. They are especially suitable for people with weak spleen and stomach and insufficient qi and blood after childbirth.
It tastes sweet and has a variety of ways to eat it. It is delicious and eaten raw, or it can be boiled porridge and steamed rice.
What fruits are good for the mother in the first week? Longan.
Longan, also called longan, is a fruit with extremely rich nutrients.
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that longan is sweet, calm in nature and non-toxic. It enters the spleen and heart meridians and is a good fruit for enriching blood and nourishing the spleen.
For people with weak physique after childbirth, eat some fresh longan or dried longan meat appropriately, which can not only replenish the qi of the spleen and stomach, but also replenish the lack of blood.
4. What fruit is good for pregnant women to eat in the first week: oranges.
Oranges contain more vitamin C and calcium. Vitamin C can enhance the elasticity and resilience of blood vessel walls and prevent bleeding.
After the mother gives birth to a child, there is a large wound on the endometrium and there is a lot of bleeding.
If you eat some oranges, you can prevent postpartum bleeding.
Calcium is an important component in the bones and teeth of babies. If a pregnant woman eats some oranges properly, calcium can be provided to the baby through the mother's milk. This can not only promote the growth of the baby's teeth and bones, but also prevent the baby from developing rickets.
Additionally, the pips and the white fibers (guang cai fen) on orange segments have a milk-inducing effect. When mammary gland passages are obstructed in postpartum women, it not only causes reduced milk production but can also lead to acute mastitis, affecting breastfeeding for infants.
Eating oranges can help avoid such problems.
What vegetables should a pregnant woman eat in the first week? The first week of maternal diet adjustment should mainly start from seven aspects: replenishing blood, replenishing nutrition, preventing constipation, assisting digestion, supplementing calcium, optimizing milk and supplementing vitamins.
Some moms think that pregnant women rely on big fish and meat to replenish their bodies, but this is not the case.
Moreover, it can also be seen from the seven aspects of maternal diet adjustment in the first week that the main thing to prevent constipation, aid digestion and supplement vitamins is to eat vegetables.
So what vegetables should a pregnant woman eat for the first week? Let's take a look together below.
During the first week postpartum, it is advised not to consume vegetables and fruits. In the second week, opt for warm-natured vegetables. Start consuming fruits from the third week onward.
Vegetables and fruits that are edible and warm in nature.
Vegetables that can be used by pregnant women include: kale, carrot, spinach, red amaranth, green pepper, tomato, nostoc, red chicken, Sichuan qi, Korean cabbage, etc.
1. Lotus root.
Lotus root contains a large amount of starch, vitamins and minerals. It is rich in nutrients, light and refreshing. It is a good vegetable medicine for removing blood stasis and creating new diseases. It can strengthen the spleen and stomach, moisten the nerves and nourish yin, promote blood circulation, remove blood stasis, and clear heat and produce milk.
Pregnant women eat more lotus roots, which can clear the accumulated blood stasis in the abdomen as early as possible, increase appetite, help digestion, promote milk secretion, and help feed newborns.
2. Daylily.
Daylily is referred to as golden lily or golden cabbage. It contains protein, vitamin C, A and minerals such as iron, potassium, calcium, magnesium, etc., and it tastes delicious. It is especially suitable for making soup and greatly supplements the blood.
Traditional Chinese medicine books record that it has the effects of reducing swelling, diuretic, relieving fever, relieving pain, replenishing blood and strengthening brain. It is also known as Forgiac and Hemerocallis. In ancient times, it was used as a prescription to treat neurasthenia. "Materia Medica Seeking Truth" said that the golden needle "can open the chest and widen the diaphragm, making people feel peaceful and without depression, so it is named Forgetfulness Grass."
During the postpartum period, one can appropriately increase their intake of daylilies.
3. Kelp.
Clear heat and reduce swelling, clear channels and lower milk.
Suitable for mastitis and milk failure.
Kelp contains more iodine and iron. Iodine is the main raw material for making thyroxine, and iron is the main raw material for making blood cells. Eating more of this vegetable by pregnant women can increase the content in milk.
Newborns eat this kind of milk, which is conducive to the growth and development of the body and prevents stupidity caused by iodine deficiency.
Pregnant women's diet in the first week is contraindicated. The diet in the first week is very important for both the recovery of the mother and the quality of the baby's milk.
This is the unchanging truth that spans time and space.
Protein has a good effect on wound healing and maternal and infant nutrition. Therefore, some remote mountainous areas or rural areas provide nearly 10 eggs to pregnant women every day. Is this method scientific? Although eggs are nutritious, excessive consumption of eggs is not conducive to the digestion and absorption of mother and infant.
So let's take a look at the dietary taboos for pregnant women in the first week.
1. Avoid consuming excessive amounts of monosodium glutamate to prevent infants from developing zinc deficiency, it is advised that new mothers avoid over-consumption of MSG.
Generally speaking, adults can benefit from consuming monosodium glutamate (MSG), but infants under 12 weeks of age are particularly vulnerable. If a breastfeeding mother consumes high-protein diets while also consuming excessive amounts of MSG, this could be detrimental to the baby.
Because of the sodium glutamate in MSG, it will enter into the infant's body through breast milk.
Excess sodium glutamate can have a serious impact on the development of infants, particularly those under 12 weeks old. It can bind specifically to zinc in the infant's blood, forming an insoluble compound that cannot be absorbed by the body, while zinc is excreted through urine, leading to zinc deficiency. As a result, infants are prone to poor taste perception, loss of appetite, and can suffer from intellectual decline and delayed growth and development.
2. Avoid rushing to consume ginseng too soon after giving birth. Some new mothers, eager to replenish their bodies after childbirth, rush to take ginseng.
In fact, it is actually harmful for new mothers to rush into using ginseng to boost their health.
Ginseng contains a variety of active components that can affect human body in a wide range of ways. Among these, the excitatory effect on central nervous system can lead to side effects such as insomnia, irritability and restlessness.
New mothers, who have just given birth, require a lot of rest and energy. Taking ginseng at this time would be counterproductive as it can cause excitement and make it difficult to sleep, thereby hindering the recovery of energy.
3. Avoid eating too much eggs Medical research shows that it is best not to eat eggs for a few hours after childbirth.
Because during childbirth, the new mother consumes a lot of physical strength, sweats a lot, lacks body fluids, and her digestion ability also declines.
If you eat eggs immediately after childbirth, it will be difficult to digest and increase the burden on the gastrointestinal tract.
Within a few hours after delivery, it is advisable to eat a semi-liquid or liquid diet.
During the entire puerperium period, according to the nutritional standards given by the country for pregnant and new mothers, about 100 grams of protein are needed per day. Therefore, eating 3 to 4 eggs per day is enough.
Eating too much eggs can also increase the burden on the stomach and even easily cause stomach problems.
4. Avoid eating too much brown sugar. Brown sugar is rich in nutrients, releases energy quickly, has high nutrient absorption and utilization rate, and has warming and nourishing properties.
After giving birth, the new mother lost some blood and was weak, and needed a large amount of trace elements and protein such as iron, calcium, manganese, and zinc.
Brown sugar also contains "motherwort" ingredients, which can promote uterine contraction, expel postpartum congestion in the uterine cavity, and promote early recovery of the uterus.
After giving birth, the new mother's vitality is greatly damaged and her constitution is weak. Eating some brown sugar has the effect of replenishing qi and nourishing blood, strengthening the spleen and warming the stomach, dispelling the cold, and activating blood and dispelling stasis.
However, new mothers must not blindly eat more brown sugar just because it has so many benefits, thinking that the more the better.
Drinking too much brown sugar water not only damages the mother's teeth, but also because brown sugar is warm, if the new mother drinks it too much in summer, it will speed up perspiration and make the body more weak, even heatstroke.
Moreover, it is advised to boil the brown sugar water before drinking. Do not use boiling water as a direct substitute for it, as brown sugar can easily produce bacteria during storage and transportation processes, which may lead to illnesses.
5. Avoid foods that are hard, rough, and cold. The mother's spleen and stomach functions have not fully recovered. Consuming food that is too cold can harm the spleen and stomach, affecting digestion. Cold foods also easily lead to blood stasis, which can cause symptoms such as abdominal pain and persistent postpartum bleeding in the mother.
Additionally, new mothers should avoid eating leftovers that have been sitting in the refrigerator for an extended period.
New mothers should also avoid foods that may cause allergies, such as seafood, as they can easily provoke allergies or bacterial infections, which could directly affect the health of their breast-fed babies.
But fresh fruit is not on the list of "forbidden" foods.
Fruits have the function of promoting appetite, aiding digestion and eliminating waste, so you need not avoid them due to their "coldness."
Moreover, fruits placed indoors are unlikely to become too cold and stimulate the digestive organs of new mothers to an extent that affects their health.
6. Avoid drinking large amounts of plain water. Generally, new mothers experience edema in the late stages of pregnancy, and the postpartum period is a prime time for physical recovery. During this period, it's important to ensure that all the accumulated fluids are expelled from the body as much as possible. Drinking too much water during this period may be detrimental to the recovery process.
If the mom is having a cesarean section, she may need some medicines. She still needs to drink some water but not large amount at once, but should drink it in small amounts.
7. Avoid acidic and salty foods. Acidic and salty foods can cause water retention, which affects the body's ability to expel excess fluids. Additionally, sodium ions in these foods can increase blood viscosity, thereby affecting metabolism and causing a slowed circulation.
During the postpartum period, it is best to avoid foods that are sour or salty.
Some new mothers are resorting to drinking vinegar to lose weight quickly.
Actually, this is not good.
Because all parts of the new mother's body are relatively weak and require a recovery process, which is extremely vulnerable to damage during this period. Acidic food can damage teeth, leaving new mothers with the disease of prone teeth sore in the future.
The amount of acetic acid in vinegar is about 3% to 4%, and when it is used as a condiment, the time it comes into contact with teeth is very short so that it will not cause any adverse effects in the body.
Therefore, consuming vinegar as a condiment does not necessitate any restrictions.
Too salty food has the effect of returning milk. Today, when breastfeeding is promoted, new mothers should taste light.
8. Avoid eating barley and its products. Barley and its products, such as barley malt, malted milk essence, maltose and other foods, have a lactation effect, so new mothers who are still nursing after childbirth should avoid eating them.
9. Avoid eating spicy and hot food after childbirth. New mothers lose a lot of blood, sweat, and more interstitial fluid enters the blood circulation. Therefore, the body is obviously deficient in yin and fluid. Spicy and hot food will damage body and consume fluid, making the new mother get angry. Sores on the tongue, constipation or hemorrhoids occur, and the baby's internal heat will be aggravated through milk.
Therefore, new mothers avoid eating leeks, onions, garlic, peppers, cumin, wine, etc.
10. Avoid eating greasy food. Because new mothers have weak stomach distension and peristalsis after childbirth, too greasy foods such as fat meat, suet, peanuts, etc. should be eaten as little as possible to avoid causing indigestion.
By the same token, fried food is more difficult to digest, and new mothers should not eat too much.
Moreover, the nutritional value of fried foods has been significantly depleted during frying, making them inferior to other types of food in terms of nutrition. Eating more of them doesn't actually provide additional nutrients for new mothers, but rather increases their gastrointestinal burden.
New mothers should consume light foods, especially within the first 5 to 7 days postpartum. Their diet should primarily consist of rice porridge, soft rice, egg soup, and vegetables, and they should avoid consuming overly greasy foods such as chicken and pig feet.
Upon delivery, if the gastrointestinal function is normal, it is permissible to consume foods such as fish, meat, chicken, pork feet, and spare ribs.
Eat 4-6 meals a day, but avoid overeating or consuming too much greasy food.
11. It is advisable not to consume hen's eggs, as the hen's egg contains rich nutrients and is considered a good product for nourishing the body, so there has been a custom in our country of giving postpartum women hens' eggs to boost their physical strength.
However, in daily life, it has been observed that many new mothers immediately resort to the consumption of rich and nourishing foods such as chicken, which still fail to produce sufficient milk or breastfeed less frequently.
In fact, one of the reasons for insufficient breast milk or lack of breast milk is due to consuming old hen's meat immediately after giving birth.
Old hens are rich in nutrition. But eating them can actually cause lactation to return. This is because, after childbirth, the levels of estrogen and progesterone in a woman's blood drop significantly, allowing prolactin to take effect and promote milk production.
The meat of the mother chicken contains a certain amount of estrogen, so immediately after giving birth to the mother chicken, it will increase the blood estrogen content of the postpartum women, inhibit the effect of prolactin, and cause insufficient lactation, even reversing breast milk.
Androgens have the effect of counteracting estrogens. The male chicken contains a little androgen. If the nursing mother eats a steamed small male chicken, it will increase the milk supply.
The medical information in this text is for reference only.
If you feel unwell, it is recommended to seek medical attention immediately, and the medical diagnosis and treatment will be subject to offline diagnosis.