WEEK 6 - Natalie Velazquez

This weeks reading "Spiritual Healing Practices Among Rural Postpartum Thai Women" explores a study of postpartum Thai women who are first time mothers and their experiences with family practices in order to recover health at home. This reading ties into this weeks themes of medicine and the spirit world, along with nature and the spirit world. The process of healing for these women relates to practices and rituals of the three essences "the body, mind-heart, and energy". According to the article traditional postpartum practices in Asian countries consist of two main schemes "traditional Chinese medicine" and "humoral theory" which is based on the assumption that the human body is composed of four elements "Earth, Fire, Air, and Water". However, this healing process also touches upon traditional Thai medicine (TTM), which integrates folk medicine and beliefs in Buddhism and animalism. In Thai philosophy human life or self is a holistic combination of body, mind-heart and energy. As these three essences compose the body, childbirth unbalances the body, mind heart and energy which causes a negative effect on a woman's mind. Therefore, treatments addressing those essences are needed in which TTM practitioners rebalance the self with three disciplines according to those affected essences. Spiritual healing is devoted to the body, mind-heart and body, Thai massage is utilized for energetic maintenance and herbal medicine is for body therapy. If hospitals started offering more spiritual or cultural healing remedies and practices for postpartum women would we really see a difference?