🎧Never Mother Alone

This week’s episode takes the long way around one deceptively simple idea: after birth, mothers need care.
We begin with Korea’s sanhujori (산후조리) and follow what happens when an old postpartum instinct of warmth, rest, and nourishment becomes a modern system: the joriwon, or postpartum care center.
Along the way, I take a quick world tour through China’s zuo yuezi (坐月子), Japan’s satogaeri bunben (里帰り分娩), and the Dutch tradition of kraamzorg — and yes, I’m spelling them out here in case my Korean tongue committed a few minor international offenses while pronouncing them out loud.
This episode also includes something I do not take lightly: a frank conversation about what pregnancy and childbirth actually cost women’s bodies, and why that conversation is so rarely had.
This week’s newsletter (yoonjiwon.substack.com/p/korean-postpartum-car…) covers different ground, including my own story of cobbling together a Korean postpartum recovery in America.
Read that, then come listen to this. They travel different roads, but they arrive at the same question.
🎧 (yoonjiwon.substack.com)Understanding Korea, One Story at a Time (yoonjiwon.substack.com)yoonjiwon.substack.com/is available wherever you get your podcasts.

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