Comfort Spray for Postpartum
One thing massage won’t help with is your nether regions recovering from the delivery of your child. To help with that a friend who has 2 young children gave me a recipe for “postpartum healing pads”. The pads are used after delivery to help soothe and heal the area that went through the most trauma during delivery. (There’s going to be swelling, inflammation, tears, and possibly stitches.)
The recipe she shared was this: My Little MeI did a little research and found a couple of additional versions of the recipes that I liked.
One from The Elliot Homestead and Modern Alternative Momma. Pinterest was a great resource for these things.
In the end I created my own recipe that used a mixture of the three.
4 cups filtered water
2 oz comfrey leaves
1 cup aloe vera
1 cup witch hazel
Bring water to a boil and steep the comfrey leaves in it overnight. Strain and keep the tea. Mix the comfrey tea, aloe, and witch hazel.
I then added 5-20 drops of these essential oils:
20 Lavender
10 Frankincense
8 Rosemary
5 Clary Sage
For the pads, after the mixture is made I put some in a spray bottle and sprayed about 20 overnight pads. After they are sprayed, wrap them individually in foil and place them in the freezer. While you’re in the hospital, ask the nurse to put them in the freezer there for you. My nurses were more than happy to do that for me.
After the pads were done, I put the left over spray in a 4oz glass spray bottle and brought it to the hospital with me. The spray was more soothing than the witch hazel pads or Dermaplast® that the hospital provided. Personally, besides my baby, it was one of the best things I had during my recovery. Just be sure to shake the bottle before each use. For extra soothing put the spray in the refrigerator.
I have no other births to compare it to, so I’m not sure if this spray and the pads helped me to recover faster, but the cool pads on that area and the spray sure felt great. The room also smelled amazing and the staff all commented on it. A few even mentioned they liked coming into my room because it smelled so great, so I may have gotten a bit of additional attention during my recovery.
Please remember this is for external use only and to let your doctor know if you plan on using this.