A couple of weeks ago I posted on making rosemary tea bath soaks. It began to occur to me that these little muscle healers might actually be useful for a little post partum healing (if you know what I mean), and I began to research ingredients to aid in wound and bruise wellness. New mommas are bathing often anyway, right? (You know, between the feedings and diapers and general life/baby stuff…) Might as well fill that soothing end-of-the-day bath with relaxing aromas and natural healing agents.
Besides post partum, these new tea bath soaks would be great for just about anyone who has had some sort of surgery or bad injury, I’m thinking that a pack would make a great get well package?
The mixture can either be steeped in hot water directly (think adding a scoop to a sitz bath), steeped in a kettle and strained (to add to a bath), or prepackaged in large tea filters to just plunk into the bath whenever you’re ready (I like to throw multiple soaks in at one time).
The secret to these guys is a mixture of salts and herbs that all aid in natural healing in some way. Kind of like the way a soothing cup helps relieve a tough cold? Same with a soothing bath tea soak for sore and inflamed muscles and skin.
The four ingredients in my tea soaks include: epsom salt, sea salt, dried calendula flowers and dried rosemary.
Epson salt is known to relax tense and sore muscles built up from stress and body fatigue (hellooo labor). Sea salt has been proven to promote cell health and reduce joint pain, it also replenishes your body of necessary trace minerals. Calendula flowers aide in preventing infection and soothing inflammation (a go-to medicinal herb for thousands of years), and rosemary has been found to have anti-bacterial and anti-oxident functions. Yep, it’s all really good stuff.
Most of the ingredients can be found at your local pharmacy (such as the salts), but I ordered my calendula off of Amazon (and still have a half a bag if anyone in SD is in need of some!). The rosemary came from our garden and was washed and dried the night before.
To assemble, into a large mixing bowl went all of my ingredients (the rosemary was stripped from its stems prior). Then I scooped and filled until each of my tea filter pouches were 3/4 of the way full.
I found large white tea filters perfect for the occasion. These guys are big enough, and are more commonly used, to steep an entire pitcher of sun tea for example.
To heat seal your bath tea bags, fold over top flap and press down with a hot iron for about 10 seconds.
Then wrap up and gift! Or perfectly sized for using a single pouch in one sitz bath for all of you mommas out there.
I also made little labels explaining the ingredients and purpose of the pouches for gifting. You can download them here.
If you’re feeling like you don’t really want to make a bunch of pouches, fill little jars or vases for use in a sitz bath and scoop in as needed. These would be cute as a new momma gift in a jar as well.
Pregnancy and post partum healing is tough! We mommas have to help each other out. Hope you enjoy!
PS You can find other pregnancy-related posts here. And since we’re on the subject, my favorite magic belly stretch cream recipe here.
