How Emily Montague turned a 2,000-year-old tradition into a modern recovery movement — and became The Postpartum Chef.
Like so many mothers, Emily was sent home after birth and expected to "bounce back." Instead she discovered the profound wisdom of zuo yuezi — a centuries-old practice in which a new mother rests and is fed warming, blood-building foods for roughly 30 days. The difference in her own recovery was so dramatic that she couldn't keep it to herself.
She spent years studying the tradition, testing recipes, and translating ancient principles into meals a busy modern family can actually cook. The result became The Sitting Month — a food-first, 28-day recovery framework now followed by mothers and caregivers around the world.
Emily's work goes beyond recipes. Her structured recovery system — the sequencing of warming foods, medicinal teas and day-by-day meal plans across the postpartum weeks — earned her a patent, a rare distinction in the world of postpartum care and a testament to how original her method is.
Today Emily doesn't only cook for mothers — she trains the people who care for them. Through her chef certification, doulas and midwives learn to run a 30-day postpartum cooking program of their own, extending nourishing, mood-protective food to mothers everywhere. It is, quite simply, care that every mother deserves.
Because no one else owns this lane. There are meal-delivery services and there are postpartum doulas — but Emily is the chef who has turned postpartum recovery cooking into a teachable method, backed by tradition, science and a patent. That's why mothers, caregivers and the media increasingly know her as The Postpartum Chef — and The Sitting Month Chef.
Explore Emily's course, teas and certification at The Sitting Month Chef.
Explore The Sitting Month Chef