80% of Women in Korea Do This After Birth
In the first episode of Body Intelligence, creator and founder Ava Lee on Korean postpartum care, restorative wellness, and why caring for yourself has never felt more complicated.
There’s a stat that has a way of stopping a conversation cold: 80% of women in Korea go to a postpartum care center after giving birth. Not a hospital. Not home. A dedicated facility where the single mandate is recovery — for a minimum of two weeks.
Let that sit for a second.
In this debut episode from Body Intelligence, we sit down with Ava Lee — the creator behind @glowwithava, founder of wellness line @byava, and the mind behind @mimitimedaily — to get into exactly that. The Korean tradition of postpartum confinement, what it actually looks like in practice, and why its absence in places like New York feels so glaring once you understand what’s being lost.
Ava has spent years at the intersection of Korean wellness philosophy and modern life, and she brings that lens to a conversation that is candid, curious, and occasionally jaw-dropping (yes, Coca-Cola comes up — in a way you won’t expect). But underneath the surprising details is something much larger: a cultural philosophy that treats the weeks after birth not as a logistical inconvenience to push through, but as a sacred window of restoration. A minimum, not a luxury.
What does it mean to really rest? To be fed, held, and released from the pressure to bounce back? And what happens to the body — and the self — when that kind of care is simply... given?
These are the questions Body Intelligence was made to sit with. And Ava, it turns out, is exactly the person to open them up. The show is about more than postpartum rituals. It’s about what we’ve lost by moving so fast, what other cultures quietly preserved, and what it might feel like to reclaim a deeper intelligence about our own bodies — one that doesn’t require a crisis to activate.
We’re talking to people who have spent their lives thinking about care: how it’s practiced, where it comes from, and what it asks of us to do it well.
One of the most enduring rituals of Korean postpartum recovery is miyeok-guk — seaweed soup. Rich in iodine, calcium, and minerals, it's the food Korean mothers eat for weeks after giving birth. But it isn't really about nutrition. It's about being fed. About someone deciding that your body has been through something, and showing up with a pot and time and the knowledge of what to do with both. Here's how to make it.
Easy Korean Seaweed Soup (Miyeok-Guk) Serves 2–3
Ingredients
1 oz dried Korean seaweed (miyeok/wakame)
5 oz thinly sliced beef (brisket, stew beef, or ribeye)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon soy sauce
5 cups water
2 cloves garlic, minced
Salt to taste
Optional: a dash of fish sauce for extra depth
Instructions
1. Soak the seaweed. Put dried seaweed in cold water for 10–15 minutes. It will expand — a lot. Drain, rinse once, squeeze out the excess water. Cut into bite-sized pieces with kitchen scissors if it’s long.
2. Cook the beef. Heat sesame oil in a pot over medium heat. Add beef and cook 2–3 minutes until lightly browned. Add soy sauce and garlic. Stir for another 30 seconds.
3. Add the seaweed. Toss the seaweed into the pot. Stir-fry everything together for about 2 minutes. This step is the secret to deeper flavor — don’t skip it.
4. Simmer. Add 5 cups water. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a gentle simmer for 20 minutes.
5. Season. Taste first. Add salt as needed. A teaspoon or two of fish sauce will give it a richer, more layered umami if you want it.
New episodes dropping soon.
Body Intelligence explores the rituals, philosophies, and conversations helping us care better in modern life.
Watch the full episode here:
And if it makes you want to call your mom, or book a flight to Seoul — we get it.