Can I use my phone, read or watch TV?

Yes, in moderation, and this is one of the rules most households have already quietly renegotiated. The traditional instruction is not to strain the eyes with close work: reading, sewing, screens, long phone calls. Understanding what it is protecting makes the compromise obvious.

What does the tradition say?

Avoid close focus for the month. In older formulations the targets were sewing and reading; the modern equivalents are phones, tablets and laptops. Long phone conversations are often discouraged for a second reason as well, which is that they are tiring and take attention away from resting.

Practice varies widely. Some households limit phone time to a set number of minutes for necessary calls, while others never mention it.

Why the eyes: the reasoning inside the tradition

In TCM the liver stores blood and governs the eyes, so eyesight is understood as something blood supports. After birth, with blood significantly depleted, the eyes are considered correspondingly vulnerable, and sustained strain during this window is held to spend a reserve that is not there, showing up later as weakened vision.

The same reasoning is why crying is discouraged in many households: tears are treated as another way of spending what the eyes need. That rule carries a good deal more weight than this one, and is covered separately in why am I told not to cry.

What does modern care say?

Two threads are worth separating.

Vision does change. Fluid retention and hormonal shifts around pregnancy can alter the shape of the cornea and the eye’s focus, so mild blurring or a prescription that feels wrong is common, and it usually settles over the months after birth. This is a real phenomenon, and it is a sensible reason not to buy new glasses in the first weeks.

Screens strain rather than damage. Sustained close focus reduces blink rate and causes dryness, tired eyes and headaches. These are uncomfortable and temporary. The remedy is distance and breaks, not abstinence.

There is one genuinely urgent exception. Sudden visual changes, flashing lights, spots or double vision, especially alongside a severe headache, upper abdominal pain or swelling of the face and hands, can indicate high blood pressure after birth and need same day medical assessment.

How families handle it today

1. Distance over abstinence. Hold the phone further away, prop a tablet rather than holding it close, and use the television across the room. Distance is what the rule is really about.
2. Short sessions. A common compromise is using screens during feeds and putting them down between, rather than continuous use.
3. Take breaks. Looking at something far away for a few seconds every twenty minutes or so relieves strain, as does blinking deliberately and keeping the room from being too dry.
4. Increase text size and reduce brightness to match the room, which cuts strain considerably at no cost.
5. Use audio when the household is strict. Audiobooks, podcasts and music carry none of the close focus objection and pass without argument.
6. Protect real contact. Short video or phone calls with people who care about you are worth keeping, because a month indoors is isolating.

That last point deserves weight. The version of this rule that removes a mother’s only contact with the outside world during a long, tiring, housebound month costs more than the eye strain it prevents. Most households, including strict ones, arrive at some allowance for exactly this reason.

For the reasoning shared across the confinement rules, see the introduction to Chinese confinement.