Hi Paul,
It so happens that keeping a woman inside her home for 40 days is not
unique to the Mexican culture. Read the following article - it gives quite a
bit of information:
_http://www.nursingcenter.com/prodev/ce_article.asp?tid=408218_
(http://www.nursingcenter.com/prodev/ce_article.asp?tid=408218)
Churching of Women after Childbirth
This is a fascinating subject. I found another article:
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~mikef/church.html