Guidelines for rekindling and protecting your postpartum digestive fire. (Postpartum Care).

* To rekindle the digestive fire: About ten minutes before meals take two spoons of grated fresh ginger with a splash of lime juice and a pinch of salt--if that's too complex just eat a slice of peeled fresh ginger. This will wake up your digestive enzymes naturally and get them into a rhythm.

* If you have absorption problems, immediately follow your meal with takram--this is two tablespoons of live culture, unsweetened yogurt churned in a cup of water with one teaspoon of ground cumin.

* Drinking cumin coriander fennel tea is another digestive help. It burns body toxins, kindles digestion, and helps any gas move out. This tea helps your body self-regulate its hormones and helps promote milk production as well! Mix equal parts of cumin, coriander, and fennel seeds. Use one teaspoon per cup tea. Simmer ten minutes, strain, and drink.

* Although baby and sleep may be unpredictable, try to eat at regular times; this way your body can anticipate meal times by starting its digestive juices going at the usual time.

* Eat your largest meal between ten AM and two PM when the digestive fire is normally at its peak.

* Don't overeat at a given meal. Overeating smothers the digestive fire, just as putting too much wood on a fire will eventually put it out. One guideline for how much to eat is to cup both of your hands in front of you. The amount you can hold in your hands is about how much your stomach can hold and do its job well.

* Eat food at room temperature or a little warmer. Eating with your fingers will make sure it is the right temperature. Test your tea with your little finger. (Cancer of the esophagus can be triggered by habitually eating foods too hot.) Digestive enzymes are temperature specific and evolved to work with room temperature food--not refrigerated, frozen, or iced.

* Allow three hours between solid food meals to allow digestion to be complete before new food is added to the system. Fruit digests faster when taken alone as a snack, so you can eat other food about one-and-a-half hours after fruit.

* Don't drink with meals. Drink one hour before or two hours after. This avoids diluting your digestive juices, which would reduce their working capacity. Have soupy foods at meal time to avoid too much dryness instead of drinking.

* Chew food mindfully. Poorly chewed food may cause choking and, more likely, poor digestion. The mouth is the first step of digestion--chewing well mixes the enzymes in saliva thoroughly with your food to begin the breakdown necessary for full digestion. Eating slowly and mindfully increases digestion.

* Use proper food combining as a rule. Occasional lapses may not be problematical, but daily or regular lapses will lead to serious toxic build up and the possibility of serious disease in the long run.

* No fruits eaten with other types of foods.

* Melons always eaten alone.

* Milk always taken alone except for totally sweet fruit, i.e., dates, mangoes, figs, or cooked with basmati rice.

* Don't mix milk with dal, fish, or meat--this is definitely an undesirable combination.

* Don't take yogurt in a meal with meat.

* Relax to allow for proper digestion. Talking lots, reading, and other "head" activities can confuse your prana or life energy flow as to which way to flow and are bad for digestion. Avoid jumping up and down from the table or watching Tv. The Ayurvedic ideal is to not talk while eating. If that doesn't work--avoid emotionally upsetting topics and topics you don't want to take deeply into your body. Make food a sacrifice to the digestive fire, offered to your god. Saying a prayer or sitting quietly for a minute or two before eating will allow you to slow down and let energy and blood go to your digestive tract.

* Subtle qualities of food can become more important in the sensitive postpartum period. Fresh foods bring vital energy--avoid leftovers longer than twenty-four hours old; food cooked by people when unhappy; and processed food, which has lost most vital energy. A pleasant atmosphere and appearance of food will make for better digestion--you'll feel more like taking it in.

* Don't eat and then sleep--leave two hours between them. Digestion works better in an awake state.

* Don't eat and then exercise, except for taking 1,000 steps after a meal. Allow two hours between eating and exercising.

* Don't eat and then meditate. Leave one hour between to avoid poor meditation or bad digestion.

* Follow the diet appropriate for your constitution and/or current condition, as well as the season. For most postpartum women a vata-reducing diet is appropriate. (See suggested vata diet modified for postpartum women.)