Pantang: The Malay Forty Days
"What is not done is what makes her well."
Pantang is a Malay word meaning simply "taboo" or "prohibition." It names the forty to forty-four day postpartum tradition observed across Malay communities in Malaysia, Singapore, and the wider diaspora, because the tradition is defined as much by what is not done as by what is. The new mother does not bathe in cold water. She does not eat cooling foods. She does not lift, or carry, or go outside. She rests. She is warmed. She is wrapped. The prohibitions hold her body still while it heals.
The prohibitions
Pantang takes its name from its restrictions, not its activities. In Malay traditional medicine, the postpartum body is considered open and cold, vulnerable to wind, water, and the inward pull of unhealed tissue. The forty days that follow birth are organised around closing what is open, warming what is cold, and protecting the mother from anything that would deepen either. The restrictions are not punishment. They are the architecture of recovery.
Bertungku and bengkung
Two practices sit at the heart of pantang. Bertungku is the laying of a heated stone, wrapped in cloth, against the mother's abdomen. The warmth supports the uterus in returning to its smaller size, eases trapped wind, and draws out residual blood. It is performed daily, often by the mother's own mother or by a trained bidan (midwife).
Bengkung is the long cotton wrap, sometimes ten metres in length, used to bind the mother's torso from hips to ribs. The wrap supports the abdominal wall as it knits back, contains the deep visceral spaciousness left by pregnancy, and provides a steady, held warmth that many women describe as the most physically grounding part of those weeks. Bengkung is the element of pantang that has travelled furthest beyond Malay communities; it now appears in Western doula practice under its original name.
What is eaten
Food during pantang is warm, dry, and concentrated in flavour. Rice with herbs and toasted spices, chicken or fish cooked in coconut milk and ginger, ulam (Malay herbs eaten lightly steamed or raw), and broths built on bones, root vegetables, and warming spices. Coconut water, normally cooling in Malay thinking, is replaced by warm drinks. Cold foods, fruits considered cooling like watermelon and cucumber, and watery foods are kept back from the early weeks. The mother eats little but often, food chosen for what it does to the body rather than what it does to the appetite.
Jamu
Jamu is the Malay system of herbal tonics, a tradition shared with Indonesian jamu and rooted in centuries of regional herbal knowledge. Postpartum jamu blends draw on ingredients including turmeric, ginger, tamarind, fenugreek, and bitter herbs prepared in carefully balanced combinations. They are taken as drinks, often morning and evening, through the full pantang. Specific blends are usually prepared by the family, a bidan, or a local jamu maker, with formulas that vary household to household.
What pantang teaches every mother
Pantang teaches that healing is not addition but subtraction. The body does not need a regimen; it needs the things that interrupt healing to be removed. Cold. Wind. Lifting. Hosting. Cooking. Standing too long. Being seen too soon. Take these away and the body knows what to do. The tradition is not asking the mother to perform anything. It is asking the world around her to perform less.
On Working Across Cultures
For years I worked as cabin crew on long-haul routes. Alongside colleagues and the women I met in the cities we flew to, I noticed how differently people talked about new mothers, about grandmothers, about the weeks after birth. It was only after I had my own baby, and lost my mum in those first weeks, that I understood how thin our postpartum had become.
I am of Western heritage. The traditions held on these pages are not mine to claim. If you have inherited one, jaapa or zuo yuezi or omugwo or la cuarentena or chilla or another, your family holds it better than I ever will. What I can do is the work that makes space for that tradition to happen. The cooking and the cleaning. The herbal teas brewed to the recipe your mother sends. The warm oil prepared the way your maternal aunt tells me to prepare it. The nights when someone needs to sit awake with the baby so a grandmother can sleep.
We build your postpartum together. The shape comes from you. Plants of my ancestral lands sit alongside whatever your tradition asks for. Where my knowledge runs out, I learn from the people in your life who hold it.
What this could look like in your postpartum
If your family practises pantang and you would like a doula working alongside, my role can shape itself around what the household needs. If your mother or bidan is coming to perform bertungku, urut massage, and the bengkung wrap, I can take the household work that frees them to focus on you. If they cannot come, I can take on more directly: warming the stone, preparing the wrap, sourcing the herbs and holding the mother.
Some families want pantang held close to its traditional Malay form. Some want to keep the warming principle and the bengkung but weave in their other family customs alongside. Some wish to honour both a Malay and an English family inheritance in the same weeks. We design your bespoke postpartum together.
Begin Your Postpartum
The Sacred Pause is my six-week postpartum offering, and a natural fit for a pantang-honouring postpartum. To talk through what your forty days could look like, book a free discovery call. There is no pressure on either side.
Mothering the Mother