Postpartum Care | Perineum Sitz Bath

It’s funny, but after delivering a baby all the attention shifts off of you on to the new life you have birthed. No one seems to concern themselves with that little person’s mode of entry into the words. Your nether regions. In order to soothe and care for the ordeal that has befallen your perineum that started with a little something ominously named “the ring of fire” and ending with the shoulders of a human exiting your body. You deserve a spa day. Your nether regions deserve to be lavished and pampered and essentially treated to teatime with the queen on the daily. Enter the postpartum Sitz Bath.

A sitz bath is a shortcut for the ages, a way of soaking your nether regions and taking care of your perineum without getting full wet. After all lowering yourself onto a toilet into a sitz bath is a lot easier than getting into the bathtub postpartum. But if you have magical abs of steel then you can use the bathtub instead by filling it with 2-3 inches of warm water for the same effect.

Postpartum Sitz Bath Shopping List

Sitz Bath Basin |these normally come in plastic however I prefer this stainless steel one because its kinder on the environment and easier to disinfect between uses
Organic Comfrey root
Organic Chamomile Flowers
Organic Calendula Flowers
Yarrow
25 small cotton muslin drawstring bags (2 3/4″ x 4″)
Unrefined Sea Salt
Optional Lavender | almost every Postpartum Sitz Bath recipe seems to recommend lavender but the scent makes me nauseous and my doula said it was just fine to kick to the curb. if you’re a lavender lover, feel free to heap it in while i silently judge your olfactory system

I ordered everything in bulk online because I purchased the sitz bath ingredients postpartum during covid, but your local food coop or whole foods should offer bulk options as well. The cost for your sitz bath will vary based on how often you want to do them as part of your postpartum care regimen and how large your actual sitz bath vessel is. There is a similar product out there you can buy that has 5 herb bags for $25, so it is really is a bargain to make it yourself.

How To Assemble Your Postpartum Sitz Bath

1. Add a heaping scoop of each herb into a medium sized mixing bowl (or your sitz bath itself) and gently toss to combine. Your hands work best.
2. Using a large spoon or scoop, fill the cotton bags about 3/4 full, slightly shaking the bag to help the herbs settle in. You don’t have to really pack it down hard, but you do want to make sure there are a decent amount of herbs inside. Also, the calendula flowers are kinda large so as you scoop you want to make sure you kinda portion them out evenly among the bags. I think each of my bags ended up with about two or three flowers.
**Helpful Tip** As you fill your bags and set them aside, leave them open in case you want to add any more once they are all filled. It’s a time saver if it turns out you were a little too skimpy the first time through.
3. Once all your bags are mostly full and you are satisfied, pull them tight and toss them into a gallon size Ziploc until you need them once the baby is born.
4. Print or copy down the instructions for using the herbs and stick it in the large ziploc along with all your cute herb pouches. Even if it sounds easy now, you might want to have the directions on hand when you have newborn brain fog or if you ever need someone else to prepare them for you.

Using Cold or Warm Water in a Postpartum Sitz Bath

While you can use warm or cold water, studies have been done show that cold water provides more pain relief after doing the postpartum sitz bath. You can imagine that cold water is quite the shock and not what we think of when it comes to comfort, but if you look at how other injuries to our bodies are treated, cold packs are quite normal in that context. The cooler the temperature, the more pain relief, Ive heard that adding a bag of crushed ice to your sitz bath can do wonders to relieve perineal pain. I for one am not yet brave enough to dunk my nether regions into an ice bath, however feel free to try both and decide which you prefer.

Directions For Using your Postpartum Sitz bath

1. Take a 1 quart Mason jar (or some other type of glass container with a lid that will hold 3-4 cups of liquid) and drop one herb bag into the bottom. Make sure the drawstring is pulled nice and tight.

2. Pour 3-4 cups of boiling water into the jar, filling so it is almost full, but not overflowing.

3. Cover with a lid and allow to steep overnight at room temperature (or at least around 6-8 hours) to make a nice strong brew.

4. Once the “tea” has steeped long enough, remove the bag and pop the jar in the microwave for a minute to get it nice and hot again.

5. Add a 1/2 Tablespoon of good, unrefined sea salt to the jar and stir to dissolve.

6. Next, use your freshly brewed healing “tea” in a peri-bottle and rinse your southern region down or in a sitz bath for 10 minutes. *

I have read that doing a sitz bath twice a day is the fastest way to heal and recover from birth but you do want to be careful if you have any dissolvable stitches. If you do, you might want to stick to just using the brew in a peri bottle and using it after going to the bathroom.