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.