What causes headaches during confinement?

Women should not be exposed to the wind during the confinement period. The body needs to recover, not only to get rid of physical weakness, but also to regulate the body and promote postpartum recovery. You need to be careful about headaches during the confinement period because it can easily cause postpartum complications. There are several main reasons for confinement headaches, including physical weakness, excessive exertion, and lack of sleep, which are most likely caused by the problem of wind.

Causes of postpartum headaches:

The headache during confinement is primarily caused by childbirth itself. Due to excessive blood loss during childbirth, the postpartum qi and blood are insufficient, the brain marrow is empty, and the blood cannot nourish the brain, causing headaches. On the other hand, incomplete expulsion of lochia after delivery may lead to blood stasis, which may rush upward, block the brain vessels, and cause poor blood circulation, leading to headaches. Secondly, it is caused by not paying attention to the correct work and rest schedule after childbirth. In this regard, new mothers should pay special attention. If you do not take proper care after giving birth, you may be exposed to wind and cold, and the cold evil may invade your brain and cause headaches. Especially during the confinement period, people are too eager to get ventilation and rest in a ventilated place, which may lead to being exposed to the wind; after washing their hair and taking a bath, they do not add clothes or dry their hair in time, which may cause catching a cold.

How to treat postpartum headaches:

1. Pregnant women who suffer from headaches due to external factors should eat a light diet and use tonic products with caution. It is advisable to eat foods that help dispel wind and evil, such as onions, ginger, fermented black beans, patchouli, celery, chrysanthemum, etc. Women with wind-heat headaches should eat more foods that have a heat-clearing effect, such as mung beans, cabbage, radish, celery, lotus root, lily, and raw pears.

2. For postpartum women with headache due to internal injury, the main treatment is to replenish the deficiency. At the same time, the specific causes and concomitant symptoms should be identified, and dietary prescriptions with appropriate properties and flavors should be selected, and nutritious foods such as meat, eggs, seafood, yam, longan, fungus, walnuts, sesame, lotus seeds, etc.; those with liver and kidney deficiency and insufficient qi and blood should eat foods such as dates, black beans, lychees, longan meat, chicken, beef, turtle meat, and turtle meat to nourish the liver and kidney and replenish qi and blood.

3. For headaches caused by internal injuries, the treatment should be to attack the evil. For those caused by phlegm, dampness, and blood stasis, it is advisable to eat foods that have the effects of strengthening the spleen and removing dampness or promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis, such as yam, coix seed, orange, hawthorn, brown sugar, etc.