The Warmth Mothers Need: A Holistic Approach

While I’m sitting here, still in this cold, endless January, hands wrapped around a cup of spiced tea, I find myself thinking about (and craving) warmth.

Outside, the days are still short, the air sharp, everything inviting us to slow down and turn inward. In a couple of days it will be Candlemas, a moment that marks the returning of the light. A small but meaningful shift. Mid seasons, almost unnoticed.

Candlemas also traditionally signal forty days after the birth of Christ. And while I don’t identify as Christian, I can’t ignore the symbolism that lives inside this moment, marking the end of Mother Mary’s puerperium. A point mid seasons in motherhood, almost unnoticed.
Forty days of being held back from the world. Forty days of rest, recovery, and protection after birth.

Across cultures, across beliefs, we hold this knowing that after birth, a mother needs time, warmth, and containment.

Warmth, in the in between, feels especially powerful.
After birth, a mother is no longer pregnant, but not yet back in the world. She is between identities, between rhythms, between who she was and who she is becoming..

Warmth make transitions bearable. It is what allows the body to soften, the nervous system to settle, and new life to take root.

Why Warmth Matters After Birth

After giving birth, a woman is physiologically and emotionally open. In many traditional systems of care, the postpartum period is understood as a time of closing, restoring, and protecting warmth in the body, not just symbolically, but also very practically.

An Ayurvedic Perspective

In Ayurveda, birth is considered a profoundly Vata-increasing event. Vata is the dosha associated with movement, air, dryness, cold, and change. Labour, birth, blood loss, lack of sleep, and the sudden shift from pregnancy to postpartum all strongly aggravate Vata.

For this reason, Ayurvedic postpartum care focuses heavily on warmth, oiliness, nourishment and routine. Warm food, warm environments, warm clothing, oil massage and rest are not just for comfort, they are medicine.

By keeping a new mother warm, we help calm the nervous system, support digestion and assimilation of nutrients. We also encourage uterine involution and protect long-term health.

Mediterranean and Italian Traditions

This understanding is not unique to Ayurveda.

In many Italian and Mediterranean traditions, postpartum women were historically encouraged to stay inside, avoid cold air, and eat warm, nourishing foods for weeks after birth. Broths, minestre, slow-cooked vegetables, stewed meats, and warming spices were staples of postpartum kitchens.

Cold was seen as something that could "enter" the body after birth, for example through drafts, cold floors, uncovered backs or feet. It could potentially lead to weakness, pain, or lingering imbalance. Keeping the mother warm was a form of protection and respect for the work her body had just done.

Even today, traces of this wisdom live on in the way grandmothers speak about keeping the feet warm, avoiding cold drinks, and resting after childbirth. And of course, avoid the “colpo d’aria”.

A Shared Wisdom

Across cultures, in many traditional care systems, the message is remarkably consistent: After birth, a mother needs warmth.

Warmth supports circulation, digestion, milk production, emotional regulation, and recovery. It creates a sense of safety at a moment when the body and mind are particularly sensitive. When this warmth is missing, when mothers are exposed too quickly to stress, cold, expectations, and productivity, the postpartum transition can feel abrupt and unsupported. Warmth is how we soften that landing.

These traditional practices inform the way I care for mothers today, combining warmth in the environment, nourishment and gentle guidance.

Physical Warmth
The Environment Around a New Mother

One of the first things I look at in postpartum care is the environment. A warm postpartum space isn’t about aesthetics or rules, it’s about how the body feels when it is finally allowed to soften.
A comfortably heated room, especially in the first weeks, soft lighting, quiet, slowness, and fewer visitors all help signal to a new mother’s nervous system that she is safe.
I’m drawn to natural materials that feel grounding and gentle, things that don’t demand anything but simply support rest.

I encourage mothers to stay physically warm not because they should, but because the postpartum body genuinely needs it. Natural fibers like wool regulate temperature beautifully, keeping the body warm without overheating. Layers that can be added or removed easily.

It’s a simple form of care, and yet incredibly powerful. Often, when a mother tells me she feels shaky, exhausted, or emotionally fragile, the first thing we do is not talk or analyse, we warm her up.

Warmth Through Food
Nourishment That Restores

Food is one of the most tangible ways to offer warmth in the postpartum period. In those early weeks after birth, I gently guide mothers toward warm, nourishing, easy-to-digest meals. This is not as a set of strict rules, but a form of support for a body that has already done something enormous.

Soups, broths, and stews. Slow-cooked meals and warm breakfasts instead of cold ones. Herbal teas and other warm drinks. These are foods that ask very little from digestion and give a lot back. Spices like cinnamon, ginger, fennel, cardamom, and cloves bring warmth from the inside out, supporting circulation and digestion in a subtle but steady way. Even sweetness can be nourishing when it’s warm and intentional: stewed fruit with spices, porridges, simple baked desserts.

Warm food speaks directly to the postpartum body. It says: you are allowed to slow down, you are being taken care of, you don’t need to work so hard right now.

Relational Warmth
Being Seen, Known, and Carried

But warmth is not only physical. This often translates into being deeply seen, known, and supported by someone who understands your journey.

This is where my work as a doula and kraamzorg professional intertwines.

When I support a family through pregnancy and birth and then continue into the postpartum period, something very special happens. We already have a relationship. There is trust, history, shared language. We don’t start from zero.

I know how the birth unfolded, I know the fears, the hopes, the strength that was found along the way. Postpartum care then becomes a continuation of the path we’ve already been walking together.

This continuity creates safety, and safety creates warmth.

Within this relational care, postpartum becomes what I often call a bubble. A protected space where the outside world softens and slows, and the mother is carried instead of carrying everything herself. In this bubble there is no pressure to perform or bounce back. Her needs come first, and she is allowed to rest, recover and be mothered herself.

My role is not to take over, but to hold the space: practically, emotionally, and energetically.
And to offer warmth when things feel cold or overwhelming.

Warmth as Foundation

Warmth in the postpartum is foundational. It supports healing, bonding, and mental health. But above all, it supports mothers into becoming: slowly, gently, in their own time.

In this bubble of warmth and care, a mother moves through what is really just a fleeting moment mid-seasons in motherhood, almost gone unnoticed, but with the right care, she’s aware and carried nonetheless.

This article only touches the surface of what postpartum warmth really means, but there is so much more to explore. Stay tuned!