cotton balls in ears after birth

[Veronique]

Hey,
I'm going to have my baby tomorrow, and one of the things I've noticed here in MExico is that the women put cotton balls in their ears after birth. I can't seem to think why. Anyone do this? Any benefits?

[Mamato3wild ponnie]

Never heard of it...interesting though.

[hunterofkyle]

Woah weird. I haven't ever seen that here either. If you see it again, you should ask the woman. I've learned a lot of interesting stuff from strangers on the street. They are usually more than happy to educate me.

[luciiesmommy]

i dont know...
i've never head of it.

[ecky]

i found some info...

i did a search to try to find info about this because i thought it sounded odd and here is what i found on some random thread:

"Putting cotton in the ears is an ancient practice in South India. Recognising that women who have given birth recently have reduced energy levels and are more susceptible to infections, Indians had always advised women to put cotton into their ears for 60 days after child birth. We still see many women with cotton in their ears in many hospitals in South India, even though doctors nowadays are not reecognising this be effective."

Then there were posts from lots of people saying how great it worked for them to relieve anxiety and help them sleep better. I would be really careful sticking anything in your ears ... (as my mom always said "don't put anything in your ear bigger than your elbow)
but this is what it appears to be for nonetheless.

[orangefoot]

Red thread is used on babies to prevent 'mal de aire' - ill winds; amber or yellow coloured beads protect against 'mal de ojo' - the evil eye. It is often held that mothers should not leave the house with the newborn or have anyone other than family visit the newborn until the 'ombligo' belly button has healed to prevent evil spirits from entering the baby through this open wound.

My children had read thread bracelets with amber beads to protect them from mal de aire and mal de ojo and they were also gifted talismans made from ojo de venado seeds hung on a red thread with a yellow glass bead and a picture of the Virgin Mary stuck onto the seed too.

The cotton in ears is, I think, about protecting these entrances to the body through which damaging vibrations and ill words/sounds can enter when you are weakened and at your most 'open' through having the wound of the placental site unhealed.

Even as an adult, if you have hiccups on public transport people will hunt around for a red thread to make into a ball and stick on your forehead to cure you. Very odd especially when the stranger uses their spit to make the thread into a ball before offering it to you!

[hunterofkyle]

YAY - I'm glad to see some maybe explanation for that. I still have never seen it, but I feel a little more educated having read this.

[Zulema]

Hi!
I found this:

To avoid that the cold enters and it remains in the body: an important mission during the childbed

During the childbirth, the adolescents perceive that the body is open and been vulnerable to the cold entrance. In the childbed it continues the entrance of the same, through pores, the vagina, the head and the ears, and can produce from slight malaises, to ailments that will affect for always their state of health, without possibilities that the western medicine can remedy it. The puérperas adolescents understand that its body has front doors for the cold. This, represented mainly by the night watchman, he cools the blood and he distributes himself by all the body. This belief is narrated by one of the general informants as it follows:

“At the moment that is born the creature all the pores are open. The women who do not consider that, then undress, open the key of the bath and they bathe. That cold, that amazement, that ice of the water, is concentrated, entered to him by pores and there the cooling from the blood, the bad circulation, the pain waist, the bones, the head, the eyes, the ears comes…”. Rose (midwife)

the original text (ins panish) is here: http://aquichan.unisabana.edu.co/ind...e/view/125/203