Dear Sister,
Let me ask you something, and please be honest with yourself.
When was the last time you stood in front of the mirror after a bath… and looked away?
If you're like most mothers I meet, it happened this week. Maybe this morning. You turn to the side, you see the soft belly that still looks four months pregnant — months, sometimes years after the baby came — and something inside you quietly sinks.
You have tied wrapper to hide it. You have worn the waist trainer until your skin burned. You have drunk the flat-tummy tea that only sent you running to the toilet. And still, it is there.
My name is Mama Ngozi. I am a grandmother from the East, and for thirty years I did Omugwo — travelling to my daughters, my nieces, the young wives on my street, to nurse them back to themselves after childbirth.
I watched the same thing happen, over and over. A woman would give birth with a belly like a drum. And by the time I left her — sixty days, sometimes less — her waist was back. Not hidden. Back.
The girls of today were never taught this. Their mothers were too far, too busy, or had forgotten. So they reach for trainers and teas, and they wonder what is wrong with their bodies.
Nothing is wrong with your body, my dear. You were simply never closed the way our mothers closed us. And it is not too late to do it now.
With all my love, Mama Ngozi Igbo grandmother · 30 years of Omugwo · mother of the method
