Kamarkas Benefits After Delivery: Panjiri Tradition, Honestly

Kamarkas (Butea gum, from the palash or dhak tree) is the dark red, glassy flake that goes into postpartum panjiri and laddoo across Punjab and north India, and its name literally means “the thing that tightens the waist”. Here’s what it is, which kamarkas benefits after delivery hold up, what the back pain story rests on, how it fits a new mother’s diet, and how to tell the real flakes from a cheap swap.

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What is kamarkas?

Kamarkas is the dried gum (sap) of Butea monosperma, the “flame of the forest”, a tree that covers itself in bright orange flowers in late winter and spring. When the bark is cut, a red juice seeps out and hardens into brittle, ruby-to-dark-brown flakes that old pharmacy books called Bengal kino, and that pansar shops now sell loose by weight in clear plastic packets next to the gond. Simple.

• Look: small, irregular, shiny flakes, almost black in the jar but deep red when held up to light
• Taste: sharply astringent, the dry pucker of strong tea, with no sweetness
• Not the same as: babool gond (pale, puffs in ghee) or gond katira (white, swells into jelly)

That last point trips people up in the shop. Gond and kamarkas often sit side by side in panjiri, but they behave very differently in the pan, and our gond ke laddu recipe covers the puffing gum.

Why is kamarkas given after delivery?

What people say

Ask any elder and you’ll hear that kamarkas “sets the back” after childbirth, closes the joints that opened during labour, stops weakness and stops leucorrhoea (white discharge). Some families won’t make panjiri for a new mother without it.

What tradition says

In Unani and Ayurvedic practice Butea gum is described as cold and drying, strongly astringent (qabiz), and used for loose motions, bleeding gums, discharges and to “tighten” tissues. In the chilla, the 40 days after birth, it joined gond, dry fruits, ghee and whole wheat flour in a warming, energy-dense sweet that a tired mother could eat in small bites through the day.

Our honest take Depends

Kamarkas is a reasonable traditional ingredient in a small food amount, and the panjiri as a whole gives real energy when a mother is feeding a baby round the clock and has little time to cook. What isn’t shown is that the gum itself strengthens the back, closes pelvic joints or makes any difference to postpartum discharge. Back pain after birth usually comes from weeks of carrying, feeding hunched over and weak core muscles, which improve with posture, rest, gentle movement and time. And a discharge that smells bad, comes with fever, or is very heavy is a doctor’s job, not a sweet’s.

How to use kamarkas in panjiri

Kamarkas doesn’t puff like gond, so it’s roasted briefly and ground. This is a small batch for about 25 to 30 portions of 30 g, built on our winter panjiri recipe:

1. Warm 1 tablespoon of ghee in a heavy pan on low heat and add 20 g of kamarkas flakes. Stir for 1 to 2 minutes until they crackle slightly; don’t let them smoke or turn black.
2. Cool, then grind the flakes to a fine powder in a dry grinder.
3. In 150 g of ghee, roast 250 g of whole wheat atta on low heat for 15 to 20 minutes until it smells nutty and turns light brown.
4. Off the heat, stir in 100 g of chopped almonds and other nuts (lightly roasted), 30 g of fried gond, 30 g of makhana and the kamarkas powder.
5. Once just warm, mix in 150 g of powdered jaggery or sugar. Store in an airtight steel or glass jar for up to a month.

A normal portion is 2 to 3 tablespoons (about 30 g) once a day with milk or tea. More isn’t stronger; it’s just more ghee.

How many calories are in postpartum panjiri?

Quite a lot. A 30 g portion of a rich panjiri usually lands somewhere around 140 to 170 kcal, depending on how much ghee and sugar went in. A breastfeeding mother needs roughly 400 to 500 kcal more a day than before pregnancy, so one portion fits comfortably; eating a bowl every few hours, as some families urge, can add up to far more than that. If you’re also hoping to lose the pregnancy weight slowly, our postpartum weight loss guide explains how to do that without cutting milk supply.

Does kamarkas increase breast milk?

There’s no good evidence that it does. Kamarkas isn’t a traditional galactagogue (milk-increasing food) the way methi or saunf are said to be, and milk supply mostly follows how often and how well the baby feeds, plus enough fluid, food and rest for the mother. A small amount in panjiri is unlikely to harm a breastfed baby. Avoid taking kamarkas as a separate medicine powder while breastfeeding unless your doctor agrees, because there’s no safety information on larger amounts.

Myth: kamarkas closes the hip bones after childbirth

The pelvic joints soften in pregnancy because of hormones, and they firm up again over the following months on their own. No food speeds that. None. Pelvic floor exercises, avoiding heavy lifting in the first weeks and good posture while feeding help far more with the “loose” feeling many women describe.

Myth: kamarkas is “too hot” for summer births

In Unani terms kamarkas is actually described as cold and dry; it’s the ghee, dry fruits and gond in panjiri that are counted as hot. If a summer mother feels heavy or gets loose motions or heartburn, reduce the ghee and portion rather than blaming one ingredient.

How to buy real kamarkas

• Hold a flake to the light: real kamarkas glows ruby red at the thin edges.
• Taste a tiny crumb: it should be harshly astringent with no sweetness. A bland or sweet flake is wrong.
• Drop a few flakes in a glass of water: real kamarkas slowly tints the water reddish brown. This only shows it’s a red tannin gum, not that it’s pure.
• Avoid: dusty mixes with bark chips, and flakes that look like black glass but taste of nothing, which may be another resin.

Keep it in a dry, airtight jar. It lasts a year or more if moisture can’t get in.

Did you know?

The palash flower was the traditional source of the orange colour for Holi, and the tree’s seeds are a completely different matter: they were used in old remedies for worms and are not eaten, because they can upset the stomach badly. Buy the gum, never the seeds, for cooking.

Kamarkas: what new mothers and families ask

More traditional foods and fixes, looked at honestly, are in Desi Remedies.