• Throughout time and around the world, new mothers have followed special protocols of eating warming foods, retreating at home, and resting in the weeks after giving birth in order to recover fully, prevent depletion and anxiety, and ensure a strong start to life with their child. Today these traditions are a lost art, yet are needed more than ever.

  • In a sea of books focused on caring for the baby, The First Forty Days: The Essential Art of Nourishing the New Mother shifts the focus. Inspired by global traditions of postpartum care, it shares 60 recipes to replenish the mother after birth and guides her through the changes in her body, psyche, relationships, and home.

  • Crafting this book with Heng Ou and Marisa Belger was a true collective effort. We three mothers circled up around a common goal: to empower women to seek the care and nurturing they deserve after bringing a baby into the world. A fourth friend, photographer Jenny Nelson, captured the spirit of the book with her lens.

Latest From The Blog

W magazine: From Waif to Woman
W magazine: From Waif to Woman
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My new piece for W magazine has been a long time in the making. It’s a personal essay about getting bigger, stronger, and finally learning to like the body I … Read More

Appearance: Birth Convention in SLC
Appearance: Birth Convention in SLC
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Scores of midwives; dozens of doulas and hundreds of mamas-to-be: We were definitely amongst our people when Heng and I traveled to Salt Lake City last weekend to appear at the … Read More

New Project: Primal Fat Burner
New Project: Primal Fat Burner
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I got a ketogenic education when I helped ancestral nutrition expert, Nora Gedgaudas, edit and refine her new book Primal Fat Burner (Atria Books). Nora is one of the preeminent … Read More

Podcast: The Fourth Trimester
Podcast: The Fourth Trimester
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  Heng and I had the opportunity to talk about The First Forty Days, our best advice for mothers-to-be, and the delights of Ceremonial Hot Chocolate on a new podcast … Read More

About Amely

Passionate about wellness and personal transformation, Amely is the co-author of the New York Times bestseller, Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore Your Body’s Natural Ability to Heal Itself, which has sold over half a million copies worldwide. She has written health and lifestyle books with well-known personalities for Harper Collins and Rodale and for brands such as NYC’s Juice Generation.

A one-time writer for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, Amely also helps some of the world's best-known brands and organizations deliver their messages through copywriting, press material, custom publishing and web copy. Clients include TOM FORD and TOM FORD BEAUTY, Nike, and the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. Her journalism and personal essays have appeared in magazines such as W.

Amely’s mission is to work with the visionaries at the front edge of the shift in health, sustainability and consciousness, with a particular focus on supporting women, mothers, and young children. Complementing her writing career, she is a teacher of Vedic Meditation and a Master Teacher of Radiance Healing and Meditation. Amely lives with her husband and daughter on California's Central Coast.