Mothering the Mother: African American Postpartum Traditions, Recipes and Healing

＂A comprehensive exploration of postpartum traditions that emphasize the importance of nurturing mothers during their most vulnerable times. From traditional recipes to rituals, this book highlights sisterhood and the need for comprehensive care that honors both the mother and the newborn.＂
―from the foreword by Erykah Badu, five-time GRAMMY Award Winner, singer/songwriter, and holistic healer

As a mother, grandmother, and traditional midwife, Shafia M. Monroe intimately knows about childbirth and the fourth trimester. For over forty years, she’s helped thousands give birth, and has taught thousands more how to support birthing parents, all integrating the deep wisdom of African American healing traditions. Long suppressed by the white medical establishment, these practices--such as belly binding, heat, herbs, the lying-in period, and the ＂taking-out-of-bed ritual＂--are powerful healing tools. Using them, we mother the mother through a healthy postpartum period.

While this framework will be powerful healing for all mothers, the information in this book can save Black mothers’ lives; with African American women disproportionately suffering from maternal mortality and morbidity, there is an urgent need for an embrace of African American postpartum care that surrounds the new mother and her baby with community, love, and protection. Mothering the Mother is a resource for Black women and communities to reclaim their cultural traditions for a healthy postpartum recuperation.

Shafia Monroe is a renowned midwife, doula trainer, author, motivational speaker, cultural competency trainer, Master of Public Health, and mother of seven. She is a subject matter expert on African American birth and postpartum traditions. In 1978, she learned about the twentieth-century African American midwife and has studied their traditions for over forty years, including herbal practices and the foods that were provided for postpartum health and wellness. Monroe has traveled internationally, interviewing and shadowing Black midwives to learn their postpartum culture and traditions firsthand. Monroe is an influencer and respected international doula trainer in the ways of the twentieth-century African American midwife. She is a subject matter expert on infant and maternal health. As a midwife veteran of forty years, she has cared for thousands of postpartum women through African American foods and traditions, helping them fully recuperate after giving birth. Her roots in rural Alabama, where her grandmother taught her food was medicine and her aunts taught her how to cook nourishing, African American southern meals, add to her authority and credibility for writing this book. Monroe’s work has been mentioned in The Portland Observer, MadameNoire, Oregon Historical Quarterly, Double Dutch, mater mea, and the American Journal of Public Health.