Confinement lady recommendation?

[middlelane]

Hi, maybe it's a bit late, any good confinement lady recommendation? My due day will be in one week from now. Help...

[Obiwan]

Hi middlelane, you can consider calling this lady (Kuan 'che' - kuan 'sister' in cantonese) @ 68451631.

She came recommended to us, but we ended the contract after 2 weeks. My husband and I are very hands-on and had our ways of taking care of the baby, so the confinement lady ended up having nothing to do except cook us lunch and dinner, which in my mind, was nothing special. It's just healthier (and always with ginger) which my helper who is a very good cook, can do equally well.

More importantly, we weren't raised the local ways, so we didn't follow the confinement rules. I drank cold water, I wore tank tops and shorts (good grief, I couldn't be all covered up in summer!), I had AC switched on etc etc ... I did all the things that I was not supposed to do!!! I didn't like to eat ginger too.

So like the other posters mention above, unless you really believe in the necessity of the traditional confinement or if you need someone to help you look after the baby or do night feeds, otherwise, you probably will not need one :)

Cost: HKD24,000 for 24 hr per day, 6 days a week. HKD12,000 for 9am - 5 pm.

[middlelane]

Hi, Obiwan, Thank you so much for the quick reply and detail information. My situation is my full time helper won't be ready until one month later after delivery, therefore a confinement lady sames a choice for me. However if the confinement lady doesn't do other house hold work, I still need to hire part time helper as well. Plus my husband would like very much to take care the baby byself (will breastfeeding), so what the confinement lady can do except the cooking?

Anyway I may call her to talk about.

Thank you for sharing all this again.

[Obiwan]

If I am not wrong, confinement ladies do not do housework. Their responsibilities include looking after the baby and cooking/looking after the mom :)

You can also consider getting a part-time helper to clean the house, and arrange for confinement food to be delivered to you. It really depends on how reliant you are on the confinement lady. We were very hands-on with the baby, so we figured it would be too pricey to pay HKD22k for her full-time (confinement lady typically does night feeds so the mom can rest, but we prefer to do night feeds ourselves), or even HKD12k just for her to cook for us.

I also have friends who had relatively stress free first couple of weeks as the confinement lady took care of their babies and the mommies have time to sleep.

I think some other members here may have cheaper options to recommend to you. Good luck :)

[middlelane]

guess confinement lady could not do much for night if I will get up do breastfeeding during the night. Probably a part time helper is necessary as you say. Your information is helpful. Thank you.

[middlelane]

For confinement food/soup, does anybody know which brand is better? Terreform or Buyifong? Thanks.

[alua74]

I recruited my confinement lady from the Methodist Centre who arrange these contracts for these confinement ladies who are trained through govt funds. They are under a stricted code of conduct and therefore my experience is that they do not demand lai-see's or anything. they shopped for food for me, and had everything clearly accounted for each time they shop - receipts and all.

My personal experience is that a confinement layd can assess your personal health situation and recommend the right foods at the right times - I have tonnes of books on confinement food but what they didn't tell you was when and why you can eat some of them and not others - there is a lot of wisdom in the recovery process, and I think this is where the confinement lady comes in. My helper also helped cook, but from the menu itself there was a lot of info lacking.

the confiment lady cooked my lunch and dinner ( for my husband as well), and a snack time soup for me when I was breastfeeding, and so she was very busy all day long - I was there to see her running around and not a slack moment...

I have to say that referrals are quite important though.

Hi Konradsmom,

I agree with you indeed. I need a good referral as I have no family in HK and my partner is non chinese. I am new in Hong Kong and will be deliver next year, mind to give me your confinement lady contact no please?