Postpartum Essentials: Sitz Bath

Postpartum Essentials: Pads and Witch Hazel

Breastfeeding Essentials

Postpartum & Breastfeeding Guide

Here is the complete minimalist guide for your postpartum recovery & early breastfeeding journey in the first 6 weeks (just the essentials!)

sitz bath

your body just gave birth naturally (you're amazing) and now it's time to let your body (especially your bottom) heal. Sitz bath is a warm bath, either in a bath tub or on the toilet seat, to soak your perineum area to promote blood flow and healing from tear and hemorrhoid.

direction: enjoy sitz bathing 3x a day, for 15-20 minutes (if you can only do 1x a day in the first week postpartum due to tiredness, nursing, bed resting, feeling overwhelmed, that is perfectly fine. Just do what you can and claim small victories one day at a time.)

how to: for a quick sitz bath session, fill in the sitz bather with warm water. Pour and dissolve some unscented epsom salt and add drops of lavender essential oil OR use sitz bath salts instead. Lift the toilet seat, place the sitz bather on the toilet, and enjoy for 15-20 minutes.

sitz bath herbs: if you have sitz bath herbs, make sitz bath tea and pour the warm tea in the peri bottle. You can make a concentrated sitz bath tea in advance and dilute it in hot/warm water for sitz bath sessions/ peri bottle rinses.

pads, pads, and pads

whether you give birth vaginally or c-section, you will bleed for several weeks, but you got this!

easy and quick padsicles: activate an instant cold pad, pour some witch hazel or lay out 3-5 tucks pads on the cold pad. Put the cold pad on the disposable postpartum brief or disposable diaper. Lay down on bed and press the cold pad onto the perineum area, leave it for at least 15 minutes. Do this 3x a day (or at least once). The cold will help reduce swelling. *you can also add lavender essential oil and aloevera gel (I skipped this because it was too much stuff for me)

alternative for instant cold pad: you can use regular postpartum pads, pour some witch hazel on them (and lavender EO + aloe gel if you want) and store them in the freezer at least several hours before using.

staying dry: if you have perineal wound from a tear (like I did), you may want to keep the wound dry by ditching the undies and pads. This is do-able after the initial heavy bleeding has calmed down. To do this, put a chucks pad on the bed where you sleep. To encourage healing, use the perineal balm directly on to your perineum.

pain relief: spray the dermoplast on you perineum area in addition to witch hazel spray/ tucks pad treatment for temporary pain relief and better postpartum experience.

breastfeeding

for some women (including me), breastfeeding is harder than they expected. I felt completely blindsided by how hard it was since my little one had a tongue tie and a lip tie, which negatively impacted her latch (but she was transferring milk just fine and was gaining weight wonderfully!).

it is common for women to experience nipple pain/ trauma during the early breastfeeding journey as both the newborn and mom are still learning. Thankfully, we have several things that can make the breastfeeding experience smoother.

layer up: During the early breastfeeding journey, your nipples may feel sore and sensitive that you don't want to put anything on top of them (bras, nursing pads, nursing gown, and even blanket). The solution is to layer up properly. For the first 4 weeks of postpartum, I used the nipple cream, silverettes, and breast pads (because I was leaky), in that order, underneath the nursing bra.

stay cool and comfortable: During the first 6 weeks, your body temperature might run hot and you might sweat in the middle of the night. Make sure you get yourself comfortable button/ nursing pajamas made with soft and cool fabric.

handling the flow: on the third day of postpartum, I remember my breasts getting engorged from the milk coming in and I immediately got a pair of hot and cold breast pads to calm the situation. Rule of thumb: hot pads will dilate your blood vessels and milk ducts and promote milk flow; cold pads will ease swelling (engorgement). You can use hot pads before nursing (along with breast massage) and cold pads after nursing and when engorgement happens. Once the milk flow is established, you notice that one side's let down triggers the other's! If you want to build a milk stash, you can use Haaka manual breast pump on the breast that you are not nursing with to collect the let down. Here's a quick video on how to use the pump effectively. If you want to increase your milk supply, using the Haaka breast pump with suction will gradually increase your milk production!

Hopefully this guide helps you in some ways. Email me with any questions (brigittaolson@gmail.com), I got you mama!

God bless,

Brigitta Olson