Thai Folk Medicine for Postpartum Care in Nakhon Si Thammarat Province

Abstract

            Postpartum women have physical, mental, emotional, and social changes that require care to restore health to balance by performing correctly and in line with local culture and local wisdom. This descriptive research aimed to explain the care of postpartum women with folk medicine in Nakhon Si Thammarat Province using a qualitative research. The samples consisted eight postpartum women, four folk medicine practitioners, and seven experts working in the postpartum care using folk medicine. Data were collected using in-depth interviews and analyzed by content analysis and essay writing.

            The results showed that in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, there was still care for postpartum women by staying on fire, but there were applications from the past that let postpartum women laid on a bed created a fire below together with the use of a warm stones to change to use a herbal hot compression instead of a warm stone. In the past, the postpartum women also got massage for body and uterus by stepping on the body to relax the muscles and massage uterus, which found that the current folk medicine practitioners applied a combination of orthopedic methods and massage (general massage or Cha-loi-sak and Royal Thai Massage). In addition, from the past to the present, it was also found that herbs were used in caring for postpartum women, along with advice on eating or injurious food and promoting the health of women after childbirth. The research findings indicated that transferring of knowledge in caring for postpartum women by folk medicine should be gathered and promoted and the care of postpartum women by folk medicine should be covered in primary care and included in the benefit package of postpartum care.