Why am I told not to cry during confinement?

Because the tradition is trying to protect you. In the traditional view the eyes are supported by blood, and blood is what birth has just spent, so tears are understood as drawing on a reserve that is already low. The rule is meant kindly.

It can still be a hard thing to hear when you are crying, so this guide covers both parts: what the rule means, and what to do about the feelings underneath it, which are common, real and worth taking seriously.

What does the tradition say?

Avoid crying during the month, and avoid situations likely to cause it: upsetting news, arguments, sad films. It sits alongside the rule against straining the eyes with close work, and comes from the same place. Some households state it plainly as a warning that crying now will weaken your eyesight later.

Why tears specifically: the reasoning inside the tradition

In TCM the liver stores blood and governs the eyes. Birth depletes blood substantially, so the eyes are considered temporarily vulnerable, and tears are treated as spending that same store. Crying during the month is therefore held to risk lasting weakness in the eyes, one of the complaints gathered under yue zi bing, the confinement illness.

There is a second, quieter layer. The month is designed to keep distress away from a recovering mother: no visitors bringing bad news, no obligations, no conflict. Seen that way, the instruction is less “do not cry” and more “we will try to keep this month free of things worth crying about”.

What does modern care say?

Crying after birth is normal and extremely common. Most women experience a period of tearfulness, mood swings and sensitivity in the first days, usually peaking around the third to fifth day and settling within a fortnight. This is often called the baby blues, and it is linked to the abrupt hormonal shift after delivery, on top of pain, exhaustion and the sheer scale of the change.

What matters is what happens next.

If it settles within about two weeks, that is the expected pattern.

If it persists, deepens, or interferes with daily life, that may be postnatal depression or anxiety. Both are common, neither is a character failure, and both respond well to treatment. Getting help early is more effective than waiting, and waiting for the month to end is a delay worth avoiding.

Signs worth acting on:

• Low mood most of the day, on most days, beyond two weeks
• Losing interest or pleasure in things you would normally enjoy
• Persistent anxiety, dread or panic
• Feeling detached from your baby, or from yourself
• Being unable to sleep even when you have the opportunity
• Feeling worthless, hopeless, or that your family would be better off without you

If you need help now

Thoughts of harming yourself or your baby, or feeling unsafe being alone, need help today, not at the end of the month. Contact your midwife, GP or your local emergency number, and tell someone in the house now.

In Australia, PANDA’s National Perinatal Mental Health Helpline is 1300 726 306, and Lifeline is 13 11 14. Elsewhere, your midwife, GP or local perinatal mental health service is the right first call.

Living with the rule

The most useful reframing, and one that keeps peace at home, is to treat the rule as being about causes rather than tears. Nobody can decide not to cry. What a household can do is remove the things making it more likely: take the night feed, handle the visitors, cook, keep conflict out of the room, and let the mother sleep. That satisfies the spirit of the tradition entirely, and it is what the month was built to do.

One more thing, because it comes up often and matters. Writers on confinement have described the specific guilt of wondering whether they caused their own depression by not doing the month properly. That is not how postnatal depression works. It is not a punishment for a rule broken, and believing it is delays the help that works. If you are unwell, the month did not cause it, and the month is not the cure.

The guide to visitors and boundaries covers protecting rest, and the introduction to Chinese confinement sets out the reasoning behind the rules as a whole.