6 Ways for New Moms to Use Olive Oil

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New moth­ers face a plethora of things to think about and more will­ing­ness to use only nat­ural, organic home reme­dies rather than the more chem­i­cal and arti­fi­cial prod­ucts com­mer­cially avail­able now that their bun­dle of joy has arrived. But what about them­selves?

One hero of the home­o­pathic mom has turned out to be olive oil in a vari­ety of sur­pris­ing ways. Although the uses of olive oil for babies are becom­ing more well known, moth­ers can ben­e­fit from the super­food just as much. Here are 6 ways to use olive oil as a new mum you may not have thought of:

1. As a safe, nat­ural clean­ing agent
Generally speak­ing, a clean home is a safe home, but what about all the harm­ful chem­i­cals in com­mer­cially avail­able clean­ing agents? Both wooden fur­ni­ture and any­thing stain­less steel, from kitchen fit­tings to your skil­let, can be cleaned and shined up at the same time with the use of some olive oil and a lit­tle scrub­bing.

2. Mommy’s lit­tle insom­nia helper
The sleep­less­ness and gen­eral anx­i­ety asso­ci­ated with the first while of first-time-mom­my­hood means that cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties such as mem­ory and con­cen­tra­tion are often not at peak. Luckily, Harvard Health Publications reported in 2012 that quoted a Brigham and Women’s Hospital study which found that women who ate the most sat­u­rated fats such as but­ter per­formed worse on tests of think­ing and mem­ory than women who ate the low­est amounts of these fats and more unsat­u­rated fats such as olive oil.

4. As a breast friend
In 2015, the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health reported on the effects of olive oil con­sump­tion on heal­ing burn vic­tims’ skin. It’s a pro­found insight into the sheer power of tak­ing olive oil as a sup­ple­ment to help your skin heal. Moms with irri­ta­tions, even teeth marks, on their breasts can take olive oil orally or rub it on top­i­cally for relief.

4. As a post-surgery skin healer
For those who deliver via a C‑section, olive oil can be a god­send to help with post-surgery scar­ring. This is due to the high amounts of skin-heal­ing vit­a­mins K and E found in olive oil. Simply rub a high-qual­ity olive oil into the skin sur­round­ing the scar­ring daily.

5. As a nat­ural way to treat ear infec­tions
Okay, so this one is mostly for baby — but a baby that’s not in pain equals a mother who’s not under extra strain! The web­site babygooroo.com notes that olive oil is often sold in drug­stores as a ceru­menolytic — an ear canal lubri­cant that can loosen trou­ble­some ear wax and pro­vide sooth­ing relief. Simply put a cou­ple of drops of luke­warm — not warm and not cold — olive oil into the affected ear for mild pain relief and cleans­ing of wax buildup.

• US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health


• Harvard Health Publications