The 40 day tradition is FANTASTIC! In "less-developed" cultures women tradtionally have a 40-day recovery period. In Asia, they keep you super warm and feed you seaweed soup. In Africa, you stay in your home and emerge with the baby in a parade to the town square. Your mother, sisters, aunts, cousins, friends, etc take care of your home while you bond, nuture the child, get nursing off to a good start, and the child matures a little, develops some immunities from colostrum and milk, and you settle down a little in physical recovery in terms of hormonal changes, bleeding, swelling, tears, etc. The Amish still do this. It could be called a "babymoon," if we really did it in our culture.
The Church keeps this tradition, too, even in a time when our culture does not support the new mother and new baby's needs. It is a relieving of responsibility and a recognizing of the unique nature of this "fourth trimester" postpartum period, not a statement of the woman's worth or spiritual status. A 40 day tradition is a wise and wonderful thing, and it is to the detriment of our mothers that we DONT practice a real 40 day rest in "modern" culture. Postpartum depression, stress, breastfeeding failure, etc all happen in increased rates when we don't give our mothers 40 days to focus only on herself and her newborn.
