Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Dry baby skin rash and blistered nipples

This is another post on the miracle properties of calendula balm.

Umi had a terrible dry, peeling rash on both cheeks, that developed at around one month.
I didn't put anything on it, until, as last resort, I dabbed on some calendula-infused olive oil. I had been keeping it to make bottom balm, according to my earlier post.

The rash looked better immediately, and had totally disappeared in two days. This was after weeks of having it.

I also never got around to posting about this at the time, but the same calendula balm for the nappy rash was magic for my blistered nipples during the early weeks of breastfeeding. I stumbled on this after trying pretty much everything else. What I did was, I put lanolin on the nipples before each feed. This made the nipples soft and the feeding easier. Then after finishing feeding on each side, I slathered on the calendula balm. Those persistent and excrutiating blisters soon cleared up! Calendula is an edible flower, so no need to wash it off before feeding again.

For the balm, just put freshly picked or alternatively dried calendula petals in olive/sunflower/almond oil and leave, covered tightly, for three weeks, shaking the jar daily. Make sure there is no water on the petals and no air pockets in the oil. Strain and voila! You have calendula-infused oil. Heat this with beeswax to melt the wax, and cool to solidify.

4 comments:

  1. This is marvellous stuff. Good for gardener's hands too. I love this stuff!

    Nada

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  2. Hi Debbie,

    Just wondering what the ratio of infused oil to beeswax should be. My sweet girl has just grown into the cloth nappies I've made her and after being in newborn disposables for the last 4 weeks I'm noticing a few red spots appearing on her little bottom. I really want to nip this in the bud before it becomes an issue for her.

    Ta, Anna.

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  3. Hi Anna,
    Thanks for your question. If you have some oil already infused, I usually use 1 cup of that to 1/4 cup of grated beeswax, but it really depends how solid you like your balm. Commercial stuff always comes quite hard, and this recipe is designed to be as well, but lately I like it fairly soft and runny; then you can smear it on without rubbing too much. 1/4 cup does make it fairly hard.
    Try adding the wax bit by bit. You can test solidness by dropping a tiny bit of the balm onto a saucer and popping that in the freezer. In a minute or so take it out and test the consistency. Then you can add more wax if you need it harder.
    Hope that works for you.
    Also, using a fleece liner (just a rectangle of polar fleece between her bottom and the nappy) might help with her redness - it wicks away more of the moisture and doesn't chafe when wet. Plus it will stop the balm affecting the absorbency of the nappy, which you have most admirably made yourself! I hope it all works for you - it would be tragic not to get use out of them!

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  4. Thanks Debbie, and thank you for your lovely comments.

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