92 Birth Traditions in Ecuador: La Dieta

La Dieta

In rural Ecuador, the father gives the mother his sweaty shirt after a day’s worth of work to wear during labor, which is said to give her strength. After birth the mother and baby are shielded from sunlight for 42 days. For the first one to three days following birth, the mothers body is tightly wrapped to resemble their swaddled baby and is thought to delay another pregnancy. Once the wrap is removed, the women wear heavy clothes and shawls around their heads which can be pulled across their face. After La Dieta the mother is given a bath with herbs, perfume, and milk or rose petals to mark her re-entry to the world. There is an expectation that the mother follows a strict diet, including chicken soup, which is considered to be most nourishing. This tradition is to help connect the mother and baby together, and is supported by research that by eight days, the mother and baby have learned to interact with each other.

       Women symbolically assume the status of children.  For the first three days postpartum, their bodies are tightly wrapped from buttocks to breasts, so that they resemble the swaddled infants who lie beside them.  This is done in order to “realign their bones” and to strengthen their bodies, which have been weakened by the “opening of the bones” during childbirth