Les Relevailles: France’s Forgotten Postpartum Wisdom

Postpartum

26 Jan

(Inspired by the psychoanalytic work of Anne Joos de ter Beerst)

As interest grows around postpartum traditions from other cultures - the fourth trimester, the golden month, the cuarentena - we often speak as if meaningful postpartum care exists only elsewhere.

And yet, France once had its own deeply rooted postpartum tradition. It was called les relevailles.

I recently discovered a compelling article by Anne Joos de ter Beerst, psychoanalyst, titled “The Rite of Relevailles: Inscribing a Separation” (Bulletin Freudien, no. 62), which sheds light on what this practice truly represented; and what its disappearance has cost us.

What Were Les Relevailles?

Historically, les relevailles referred to the period following childbirth, traditionally lasting around forty days. This was not merely physical recovery time. It was a distinct social and symbolic phase in which:

the woman was relieved from ordinary duties
her body and emotions were given space to settle
the community acknowledged that a profound transformation had occurred

At the end of this period, a ritual - often religious, but also social - marked the woman’s return to public and relational life.

A Ritual With Psychological Purpose

Anne Joos de ter Beerst’s psychoanalytic reading makes clear that this rite was not decorative or folkloric. Its function was to symbolically mark a rupture. A rupture between: pregnancy, birth and the resumption of ordinary life.

In psychoanalytic terms, such a radical transformation cannot be integrated through biology alone. It requires symbolic inscription. Without it, something remains unfinished.

Birth Transforms More Than the Body

The postpartum period is not only physical recovery. It is a time of profound shifts:

identity
emotional landscape
relational dynamics

A woman is no longer pregnant, but not yet “herself again.” She exists in an in-between state. Les relevailles created a container for this threshold - a time to “rise again” in the deepest sense of the word.

A Gentle Separation

The rite also served an essential relational function. It marked that:

the baby is not everything to the mother
the mother is not everything to the baby
the mother–child dyad slowly opens to the world

Rather than forcing separation, les relevailles allowed it to unfold gently, with social recognition and symbolic support.

What Was Lost

With modernization, medicalization, and secularization, les relevailles disappeared. They were replaced by administrative timelines; medical clearance and the end of maternity leave. Necessary systems, but ones that no longer speak to the lived transition. They manage bodies - not passages.