#342 | Inducing Labor Naturally: Proven Methods for Getting Down to Birth

After six seasons, we’re finally doing it—we’re talking about how to get down to birth.

As your "due date" approaches, many women find themselves up against policies, deadlines, and pressure to accept a medical induction. But what if other ways actually work?

Today, we explore all the safe, risk-free, and surprisingly enjoyable ways to support your body as it prepares for labor and to help get things going when the pressure is on. Some are physical, some are emotional, and yes—some even play on the more literal meaning of “getting down.” Each approach works with your body instead of against the clock, and most are evidence-based and easy to do. 

Whether you’re nearing your due date, facing induction, or simply want to feel prepared for whatever may come, this conversation gives you all the "hacks" to get you down to giving birth! 

#176 | August Q&A: Multiple Miscarriages; Evening Primrose Oil; Safe Bed-Sharing; Breastmilk Stashes; Failure to Descend; Pushing; High Blood Pressure

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Transcript

I'm Cynthia Overgard, birth educator, advocate for informed consent, and postpartum support specialist. And I'm Trisha Ludwig, certified nurse midwife and international board certified lactation consultant. And this is the Down To Birth Show. Childbirth is something we're made to do. But how do we have our safest and most satisfying experience in today's medical culture? Let's dispel the myths and get down to birth.

Now that we've had our little catch up because we haven't seen each other in a while, we should get down to down to birth. And talk about natural induction and talk about getting down to birth.

Yes, let's talk about how to get down to birth. That's what today's episode is. That's what today's episode is.

We're finally doing it in season six. Look at that took us long enough.

Six years later, we finally used the expression correctly.

And interestingly, if not ironically, the whole get down, indicating to some partying, having fun, sex potentially is going to be maybe the most, one of the most effective methods we're going to be talking about today. They're really getting down to birth in this conversation, right?

Yes, we are, all right. So the topic of today's episode is natural ways to induce. If you believe that inducing and natural are go together, right? So there's a little bit of a debate around that, like, if you aren't spontaneously going into labor, you are using any method to induce it. Is it really natural? And I think what we're talking about are non pharmacologic ways to help support the body go into labor when the body is close to going into labor and you are really desperately trying to avoid a medical induction. And there are some great ways to do it, and you have to try these things before you agree to a medical induction. Now it's a whole nother conversation to talk about when you should actually be medically induced, because there are few cases where you really need a medical induction, but sometimes you do. And even if you are facing that, especially if you are facing that for something like post dates, which you know you might be losing the ability to give birth at a birth center, or possibly your midwife is saying that if you go past 42 weeks, they can't attend your birth anymore. Then these are great times to try any or all of these natural methods. And some of them are also things that you should just be doing proactively, from 37 weeks on, to help give your body the best shot at going into labor, sort of, I don't want to say on time, because on time is when you're when your baby comes, but to appease your medical providers, on time you know around your due date, closer to your due date, and having a potentially shorter labor, easier labor, even.

And of note, most of the things on this list, and we'll make clear, if this isn't the case, are not only enjoyable in many cases, but completely free of any risk. And where do you get that? When it comes to most talk around induction, it's rife with risks, and it's really a matter of balancing and countering one risk versus another. So start this off with an attitude of fun, of exploring, of trusting, of letting things happen as they may. That's always the mindset you want to have when you approach a natural means of induction. So if you're, let's say, birthing in a birthing center. I hate to even think of the example of women planning a home birth whose midwives will have to release them from their care if they reach 42 weeks. That's ridiculous, but it does exist. There's a lot of pressure on women like, oh my gosh, if I didn't go into labor by Thursday, that's when I'm 42 weeks. And then the whole birth plan is upended. That is a tremendous amount of stress and strain on a woman. So if you're one of those women, and you're days away from that, that dreaded date, that anxiety and worry and fear is one of the things that can keep a baby in it tightens the cervix. It keeps those hormones blocking oxytocin. So again, the first step is just adopt a mindset of fun and trust and relaxing and don't worry about Thursday until Thursday rolls around. So just that, that's a very critical part of pursuing any of these, and hopefully women aren't hearing this or implementing this at the 11th Hour. These are all things like, part of the beautiful thing about this is these are all things that you can start doing earlier in weeks, ahead of your due date, that aren't going to put you at risk of giving birth prematurely, or, you know, before your due date, because they're not going to work if you're about if your baby and your body are not really kind of ready for it, so you can start doing these things, and then hopefully avert the need to face that deadline that you might face for a medical induction. So totally agree, know about these things in advance. Don't feel the pressure to do these things. But if you are in that circumstance where you didn't do any of these things in it leading up to your cut off date, and you are under pressure, you can still do them, and you can do them, more of them. So shall we begin? Yes, okay, so the first things we're going to talk about are physical and mechanical methods, physical meaning, things that you are going to do physically with your body. And. And mechanical is going to refer to that dreaded membrane

sweep where they talk about, yeah, there's a there's a minor category of our conversation today that doesn't really qualify as total natural means of reduction. It is, yeah, it's not chemical, it's not natural, it's mechanical. We are including it, just for good measure. We're including it in the conversation. And it sounds like you want to knock that one out of the way first. Out of the way first, yeah, it's just the way it falls, under the under the under the physical but, yeah, but it is kind of last on the list. Okay, so walking and being upright is like number one on the list, just using gravity to help ensure that your baby is moving down into the pelvis when your baby's moving down into the pelvis, because it's going to put more pressure on your cervix, and more pressure on your cervix is going to help soften and open and ripen and prepare the cervix for labor. So you really do want to be upright and moving a lot in late pregnancy, and trying to really avoid being reclined, slouching, sitting in chairs, sitting on couches, sitting in cars for long periods of times. I mean, sometimes these things are unavoidable, if you have a long commute to work or something like that, but then you really need to be careful for the remainder of your day that you are staying out of a chair and you are doing daily vigorous walking, especially things like curb walking. If you're tired and you need to sit down, it is better to lay on your side on a bed or a couch than to kind of just like plop down into the couch and lean back. Or it's better to sit on a birth ball, or if you are at work and at a desk job, to get a birth ball that you can sit on and bounce on is going to help your baby really move down and much more than sitting in a standard desk chair.

And I just want to clarify that when Trisha says curb walking, she doesn't mean walking along the edge of a curb like a balance beam walking. You're so close to this that you know you don't know how how some women how it sounds? Yeah. So what Trisha means? There's actually a term for it, isn't it part of the mile circuit. So basically it means you walk next to a curb, and your left foot might be on the pavement, and then your right foot is up on the curb. So you walk, and you're giving your pelvis this asymmetry, asymmetrical movement. So you walk a little bit of a distance, like that, and then you turn around, switch your feet and do the other way. That's what we mean by curb walking.

You could alternatively take a hike or go up and down stairs. So if there's somewhere, like a stadium, where you can do a lot of stairs, if you want to do, like the Rocky thing, if you live, yeah, if you want to do the Rocky, right? Okay, variation of that is great, but a good, a good, vigorous hike in the woods, when you're walking up a trail, you're doing all kinds of asymmetrical stepping, walking on a flat road is boring for your body, right? It's not. It's boring for your pelvis. It's boring for your hips. It's boring for your baby. Not bore your body.

Don't bore your body. Do things differently. So get get those get those legs moving asymmetrically, those hips moving asymmetrically. This is it's so helpful. So you can start doing that from 3637 weeks on. Really, you can do that throughout your whole pregnancy. But if you haven't been doing it and you are, you know, getting to the end of your pregnancy, or you do have an induction date on the calendar, you better go for a good, hard hike, yeah. And also everything that you mentioned, the curb walking and the hiking and the bouncing on a birth ball, as you called it, or an exercise ball, all of sitting upright movement, all of these things also really facilitate optimal fetal positioning. So not only can it help your body get ready for labor, but it also will now increase your odds of vet successful vaginal birth, of a quicker birth and more comfortable birth. These are just kind of the no brainer things everyone should be doing to begin with. We're going to get into some very specific ones that are really targeted at inducing labor, but these are really good general things to start off with, for sure, to be doing through pregnancy. Anything to add?

Yeah, no, that the baby's head position is what gets labor going. When your baby's head is down in the right position and tucked in just the right way, that is what puts pressure on the cervix and makes it work. So this really helps with that. So the next physical activity you can do after you go for a good sweaty hike is you can get in the shower and you can have sex. Why the shower? I was just thinking, sweaty hike leads to shower. Are you talking about standing sex in the show. I'm like, Why you recommend?

I'm just thinking through No, no, work, no.

I have a whole different vision for where the sex comes in based on other natural means of induction that we'll get to. Like, there's a whole formula ending with sex. It's not a hike, shower. Sex. Thanks. So I let's hear your version, then we'll talk about mine. That's funny. So okay, I don't care how you get to the sex. You don't have to do the hike first. I'm just thinking, if you want to kill two birds with one stone, you don't have to do the shower. And actually, while you're in the shower, you can do nipple stimulation, which we're going to get to next, which is super effective. So you can do hike, nipple stimulation, sex, and you're going to go into labor. So sex, sex is very, very helpful. Again, this doesn't have to be at the 11th Hour. If you are in that position where you need to get things going, then you can have a lot of sex at the 11th Hour. But you also can have sex as often as you feel you can. From late pregnancy, 3637 weeks on, to help ripen your cervix.

And let's talk about why. Yeah, go ahead, if you were going in for a chemical induction before giving you Pitocin, they're going to start, start you with synthetic prostaglandins. The best known ones are cervadil and Cyto attack. And of course, they they come with risks. And it's interesting, because the best that science has ever been able to come up with is basically mimicking what happens in a nice intimate sexual encounter. So in a nice intimate sexual encounter, it's not just the movement of having sex. It's feeling into the sex. It's relaxing, it's oxytocin, it's enjoyment, it's relinquishing, it's surrendering, and it's a flood of those, those hormones. So for the woman, when she's enjoying being touched, even if it's just massage, anything like that, kissing, holding each other, hugging, even just those initial steps are secreting oxytocin in her body. So that's how they came up with Pitocin, synthetic oxytocin. But before introducing Pitocin to any woman, they've learned through the years, through all their mistakes, to start her off with synthetic prostaglandins, the ones I just mentioned, which is mimicking semen. So when semen hits the cervix, it ripens the cervix. So when a man and woman have sex, when she's pregnant, both the semen and her own oxytocin are together, increasing the readiness of her body, and there's no risk. You can't overdo this. Oxytocin is so different from Pitocin, it affects the brain. I mean, it allows things to happen in waves, rather than this on switch. So that's that's the beauty of the semen reaching the cervix. The only contraindication, Trisha, though, would be if her membranes have already released. Yes, absolutely. And men, don't worry, you're not going to hurt the baby. This is a common fear that men have, that they're actually going to hurt the baby by having sex, and the baby is very well protected by the bag of water. And the cervix is really thick. People don't realize that the cervix isn't just like a little knob, thin knob between, you know, your vagina and the baby's head. It's actually a long cylinder that has to, when we say ripen, we mean it has to open, soften and thin out, and it has a lot of thinning to do. First of all, it has to come from the posterior wall of the of the vagina and come forward. So if your cervix is still facing kind of the back, your back, you're not really ready for labor. So it moves forward. And then it has to go from being about this thick to thinning down, thinning down, thinning down, thinning down, thinning down, and then starting to open and watch us on YouTube right now, so that you know you can just did with her see my little demo. So she said, thick, yeah, yes. So that's what that's what it means when you get a bishop score. So the the cervical readiness is determined by something called a bishop score, which looks at effacement, dilation, position, softness, and then you get a score to determine whether or not you are ready for the next level, which is the Pitocin, or oxytocin. So sex works on that cervical ripening and the oxytocin works on getting the contractions going. Great method. Okay, next we have nipple stimulation. Nipple stimulation is remarkably effective. You guys, if you are going for an induction, do not accept any Pitocin or cytotech or a balloon catheter or anything before you have done nipple stimulation. It's so effective, and there's actually really good research behind it, so it should be used. I think it's underutilized, and the method for doing it can involve just your hands. You can stimulate your own nipples like we were talking about being in the shower. You can just kind of rub your nipples in the shower, and you will feel this. You will instantly feel your uterus start to contract. If you don't like doing it yourself, you can use a breast pump. A breast pump is a great method for doing it. Remember last time we talked about this that. Never crossed my mind that anyone would ever even use a breast pump. It never even crossed my mind. It must be what a lot of women do. I was just like a breast pump. It's like overkill. Why? Why do you need a machine? You have a partner for one, right? But the thing is, you it's not just like once and done. You might need to do this repeatedly, like 1015, minutes at a time, twice an hour. So you know, your partner might get a little sick of, hi, it's hard to imagine most Men Getting Sick of touching. I mean, I think women can get I think women can get over sensitized, but I don't think that's a tall request of many men. Okay, well, a partner doing the job is also a great method. So you got three options, your own hands, your breast pump, or your partner, or a combination of all three. So one Cochrane review of six trials found that nipple stimulation significantly reduced the number of women who were not in labor after 72 hours. It was most effective when the body is already close to labor. So this was six trials that had a significant difference. That's really substantial. That's good evidence. Again, it's not going to work. It's not going to work if your body is not ready. So you don't need to worry about doing this like too early. It actually comes with the risk of uterine over stimulating the uterus. But the nice thing is that as soon as you feel, if you feel your uterus is being over stimulated, you can stop, and then your body's natural rhythm will kick in with its own oxytocin. The goal is to stimulate the areola and not just the nipple. So the areola is the little circle around your nipple, and to do it for about 15 to 20 minutes per session.

Did I ever tell you my nipple stimulation story. No, I hear it. I did. If anyone had ever told me, I would say to anyone, let alone publicly, this is everything for you. This is growth. Well, you're gonna see you're gonna be disappointed, because it's not my own nipple stimulation story. You're right. Not be that would not be something I would I would be likely to share. No, but I had a couple in class once. This was just such a such a great example. It's such a great story. On a couple of different levels. They were really, they were really endearing couple to begin with. Like she was, she was like, this yoga instructor with this mane of, like, beautiful curly hair and a very open personality and a huge smile. And she was married to such a cute guy. He was, like, had glasses, very handsome, like, straight kind of person. He sat in a chair with his legs crossed, taking notes in my class every week that they were just like they were in such a juxtaposition between them. They were just so adorable. And picturing him that way is part of the story. So they were at her doctor in Greenwich doctor appointment, and they were taking my class, so they were becoming educated and had questions to ask every week, and they were concerned about the usage of Pitocin for labor augmentation when doctors start using it to speed up labor. So they were thinking about that, and they know about the risk of failure to progress, quote, unquote, in hospitals like Greenwich and the husband said to the doctor while she's sitting there, oh, Doctor, you know, should labor stall? Would you be open to, you know, allowing us some time to ourselves in the room to engage in nipple stimulation as an alternative to the usage of Pitocin for labor augmentation? They said. The doctor looked back at him when he was thinking and like, stood there like this, and goes, No, I can't agree to that because I can control the Pitocin. I can't control the nipple stimulation. And when they shared that in class, I said to him, that's what you get for asking another man permission to touch your wife's breasts. She is the only person here who needs to give permission. And what a what a concept of a society where a man is asking another man, do I have your consent to touch her body in however way she wants and I choose. So I just thought it was a great story, because he was like in this intellectual mode and wanting to do everything so, right? But we have to see the lunacy of this right outside of that outside of that hospital. That husband would have been like, come on, and she will know. She'll know if it's feeling good, or if she'll say, no, no, hands off, because women can feel over touched. Women can she'll be the first one to know if it's effective, if it's if she wants more, if it's pleasurable, or if it's too
much. What do you think we did before Pitocin? What do you think we did for hundreds and 1000s of years to help women get into labor? Right? We used our own bodies and our own hands, right? And we stimulated our own oxytocin, which is far better than synthetic Pitocin. So I am so about the nipple stimulation, like if you are thinking about induction, please do this first. It's so effective.

All right. And some home birth midwives are into it enough where they will say to that couple, okay, I'm gonna leave the room. Wow. Want you two to just spend a little time together, and some will go so far as to say clitoral stimulation, which, right? Have an orgasm, right? Like, again, might be too much. Might not be something she's into. That's step number one. But all of it is on the table. Yeah.

I mean, it's one thing in labor, but definitely leading up to labor, and in the days and weeks leading up to labor, to help get your body ready. I think in labor, if labor is stalling as well, yes, absolutely. I'm just saying a woman might be less receptive to it in labor as she would be to leading up to labor. So the next thing you can do is acupuncture. Now, we always think about acupuncture as just being something that's used for turning a breech baby, or, you know, maybe for fertility, trying to conceive, but acupuncture is also really effective for ripening the cervix. There's solid evidence to show that if you get acupuncture regularly in late pregnancy, you're going to have a better Bishop score. Again, semen, acupuncture, nipple stimulation, walking. There's so many readily available and evidence based natural methods to get your body ready and risk free and enjoyable, etc, comfortable on your own terms in your own home, all of it, all right, so the last one on the list for the mechanic, for the physical methods, is membrane sweeping. So this is the one that's sort of debatable whether we would consider this natural or not, because this is not something you're doing to your own body. Acupuncture is not either, but it's very benign and gentle, whereas membrane sweeping is pretty invasive and uncomfortable, it is effective when the body is ready, but when you do it and the body isn't ready, it's uncomfortable, and it does actually, this one comes with risk. This is the only one that comes with risk. You can very easily, inadvertently break the bag of water, or sometimes providers have been known to do this intentionally. Yeah, that's a real risk.

Yep, it is. This is the one that providers throw around like candy, like just, oh, let's do a membrane sweep. Oh, let's do a membrane sweep. I mean, before they've talked about any of these other methods that are also evidence based, and yes, it does have effectiveness if it is done at the right time, but it can be very uncomfortable if it's not done at the right time, and it can stimulate contractions that are irregular and erratic, crampy, all of it crampy, just leave you kind of uncomfortable for a few days.

Can you please explain exactly what happens during a membrane sweep? I'm sure we have many listeners who have no idea. Yes.

So a membrane sweep is when your provider, or somebody goes into the vagina and uses fingers to get into the cervix. Your your cervix has to be somewhat open for this to happen, and they kind of fairly aggressively. Sometimes go in there and have to try to break the cervix free from the amniotic sac. So the amniotic sac is kind of like connected to the inside of the cervix. And if you get in there, and you kind of break that up a little bit, it releases tons of prostaglandins. This is what happens when we go into labor. And as the cervix starts to stretch and open and it pulls away from the amniotic sac, it releases all these prostaglandins, which give feedback to the body to get labor going faster. So you can do this artificially by doing a membrane sweep.

It sounds like rupturing the membranes would be so likely. I can't believe it doesn't happen every time. I mean, I know it doesn't, but it just sounds like such a clear risk of rupturing the membranes prematurely.

Samiadic sacs are pretty strong. Yeah, a lot of them. And yeah, I mean, if you've ever tried to break one, sometimes they're really difficult to break even with a hook.

Some women's are, some women's are, for some women, they're like, opaque, white, thick, difficult, heavy duty, heavy baby comes through the whole birth canal with it intact. For other women, it's like tissue paper. It's just like, it's like the faintest membrane. So that's another thing. I mean, we don't know for whom the risk is greatest until they're in there messing around.

So Research has consistently shown that women who undergo a membrane sweep are more likely to go into spontaneous labor than those who do not. One study showed that 96% of women who had a sweep had spontaneous labor compared to 79% in the control group. But another review noted that to avoid one medical induction, eight women must have a membrane sweep.

I just wonder what the timing is on that. I mean, they're talking about in the group of women, there was obviously a point where the providers told the other women they were out of time, and now you have to be chemically induced. I mean, was it within? I think when it's effective, it usually works within 24 hours or so. I think if a woman has a membrane sweep and doesn't go into labor for six days, I. Don't think we can attribute her going into labor to the membrane sweep. I think it's definitely not right. So I wonder what that you know, how did they do this study? Like, was it that I would think it would it's just a strange thing to say those who went into labor spontaneously, because for those who didn't, a doctor intervened and said, You need to be induced. I think they would be better off doing studies to say how many went into labor in the next 24 hours compared to how many didn't that would tell us more. These are always like complicated another study did find that the statistical significance of spontaneous labor onset disappeared when only low risk of bias trials were analyzed. So that goes to show you that there was, you know, bias. You know, they were probably the membrane sweeps were more effective in the women who were already on the brink of spontaneous labor, which is the only time we would recommend that, like, if you are literally at the end of the line and you are about to go for a Pitocin or balloon catheter induction on Monday, sure on Saturday, get the membrane sweep right, and it might just save you from having to go for that that Pitocin induction, yep. Otherwise, forget it. Okay. Moving on. The next category of natural labor methods for inducing are dietary and herbal approaches. So the first one on the list there is castor oil. Castor Oil. Look out, if you try castor oil again, it can be effective under the right circumstances. And when I was in midwifery school, and my professor was studying this, she was actually doing a research paper on it at the time, and what she found was that it was much more effective in women who had ruptured their membranes and were just awaiting labor. So we know if membranes release before Labor begins, typically labor will begin within 24 to 48 hours. Sometimes it takes a little bit longer, but most women are going into labor by that 48th hour mark. However, some providers and hospitals are still putting a 12 hour deadline on women. You know, if your water breaks, you need to be here within even six I've heard six hours like come in within six hours. If you are under that kind of pressure, then castor oil might be a good option for that woman. I mean, I'd rather you just decline going in, right? That would be the best bet.

But it's still an interesting study, because if they didn't give any women castor oil at all, the group of women whose membranes released still would have gone into labor before the group of women whose membranes haven't released, even though only about 10% of women begin labor with the release of their membranes, if your membranes do happen to release the odds of going into labor within 24 even, actually, like 24 to 28 hours is, is very high area, very high. It's, it's well over 80% so that also sounds like a strange study, but castor oil is quite effective. I mean, there are a couple of these techniques that are gastrointestinal and when you use castor oil be this is not like one of the pleasant ones. Be careful that you don't take too much. Be careful about finding out exactly how much to take you're going to take. I know Trisha, you'll recommend something in a drink of orange juice or a smoothie. You don't want to take too much because it can really lead to unpleasant cramping. So Trisha, what is the typical recommendation of midwives when it comes to castor oil, typically, the dosage is one to two ounces, or two to four tablespoons mixed with two ounces of juice or something like that, just to get it down, because it tastes pretty awful, and you can do it more than Once, but it does have some pretty strong side effects. So it works by irritating the GI system, diarrhea, vomiting, diarrhea, cramping. I mean, you can be pretty uncomfortable with this, and it can cause contractions to be irregular, similar to the membrane sweep, just kind of like erratic and uncomfortable, but not necessarily productive. So again, kind of last, last line resort, but I still think I would probably try that before I would go in for a Pitocin induction. Of course, just easy, does it? And there's a, there's a much more enjoyable gastrointestinal version, by the way, that we're gonna probably mention next.

Okay, so spicy foods, yeah, similar method, yeah, similar mechanism, not quite as powerful, but harmless, other than you might get some heartburn, I guess, if you're prone to heartburn. But, yeah, I guess so, right, spicy food can do that. So, Mexican food, Indian food, I give out a recipe in my class of an eggplant parmesan from a restaurant in Savannah that became famous for its eggplant parm inducing labor in women within 24 hours. And they boast it now and say, If you don't go into labor, you can keep eating it for free until you have your baby. So they kind of became locally famous for it. And we've looked at the recipe, I've had so many people look at it, and. Try to guess what it is. It's like a combination of red pepper and black pepper. Who knows? But we do know that spicy food can be very helpful. So to me, this is one of those things that can lead to sex. It's like have a nice dinner together, watch a movie that makes her laugh, that makes her feel all warm inside, that's a romantic movie. There's so many movies that just leave us filled with endorphins. Watch one of those, then have sex like I've had so many couples over the years. Send me the photo of their spicy eggplant parm and go through these motions only to say, you wouldn't believe it. At 234, 5am, I woke up in labor. That's really nice. Yeah, it just, it's, it's fun, it's, it's nice, it's romantic, it's, it's together.

Make it together, yeah, after you do your vigorous hike in the woods, yeah, and don't shower,

and I and, and even though orgasm is such a great surge of oxytocin, having that pressure of like, I hope this works. Let's make sure this happens. Don't do that either. Like that that ruins sex. Just be intimate. Be close. Don't have that kind of pressure on yourselves. Just let it be just again. Play, relax. Have fun. Be happy. That's what you're going for.

The next food based one is one of our favorites. It's actually a supplement, not really a food, evening primrose oil. This one needs to be taken vaginally, inserted vaginally, it's going to be more effective than taking it orally. Now, some people do take it orally, but you might as well go for the vaginal route, because it's more effective and less likely to have any side effects. So the vaginal evening primrose oil can be started at 37 weeks, and it's typically 1000 milligram capsule. So it's like a gel oil capsule that you puncture so it opens you insert it up as far in the vagina as you can get. Because you're really trying to get to the cervix, you want it to get as close to the cervix as possible, and you just let it dissolve. Probably best to do it at night. That way it stays in, does its works its magic over days. You do it every day, and this is extremely effective at increasing your bishop score, ripening, softening and opening the cervix.

And research also shows dramatically reducing the number of hours in labor. I mean, this is, this is full of lovely benefits, and they found no risks, no side effects, in the whole population of women that they tested versus a placebo. I mean, really, and they did do it versus a placebo. This is really an incredible study in our August 2020 2q and A episode, I believe, at around the 11 minute mark, if I'm recalling correctly, I talked for eight minutes about this research. So if you really want our study, yeah, if this study. So if you really want all the info, go find that episode and and listen to all the research. But is is very compelling and very exciting, really. Well, I'd be all over this.

Yeah, in that study, it showed that the group who used evening primrose oil had a bishop score of almost eight compared to the placebo placebo group, which was four, so twice as good on the cervix, and they had a significantly shorter labor of four to five hours versus eight to nine hours, a lower C section rate of 21% versus 47% and the Pitocin use was also much lower in the evening primrose oil group with 29% versus 62% that's just from that one study.

It is egregious when you think about how many women are getting Pitocin and having C sections. I mean, did you hear those numbers? It's just unbelievable that any group of women are getting that many C sections and that much Pitocin. What an unbelievable abuse. Yes, the evening primrose was great, but this is just, if you just hear the madness, sometimes so much intervention, so much risk, and how many women have even heard of many of these things without doing the research on their own? They're probably learning about these things only from social media and never from their providers, right? And these are all really effective methods, right?

They'll never hear about this from most providers, from a doula. Yes, your doula is are gonna they're gonna be tell you telling this stuff all the time. But no, not the providers and they should. They should tell them what's gonna make their birth safer and easier.

I can't believe they don't. Yes, they should. Either they don't know what is a crime or they don't share it which is a crime, they can't control it in the same way that OB said he couldn't control the man stimulating his wife's nipples. They can't control your Oh, whatever your sex, your dates, your castor oil. They they can control your Pitocin.

Care about controlling they're reckless with Pitocin. He cares about whether he can bill for it. Well, yes. And controlling it that why do you want to control something that has no overuse and no risk? It's baloney. He did. He doesn't know. He just he doesn't want his work undermined in any way, and he doesn't want to be robbed of the opportunity to potentially give a woman Pitocin. There's no other explanation for it. There's no over usage of nipple stimulation. So I don't buy it. I can't control it. What? Hilarious. That's hilarious. It just makes no sense. I don't buy this. But this is what happens when you step through the hospital doors. They want to control every step of the process so that it's all under their their protocol, yeah, they also want what's billable. I mean, you and I know for sure, they're now charging women for skin to skin contact. I know. I mean, they're now charging women for skin to skin contact. What does that tell you?

Because it needs to be supervised. Supervised. You need to be supervised to have skin to skin time. They have their excuses. That's ridiculous. Should absolutely be the default, because it is by far safer for the mom and baby. So, I mean, it's good that should be the default, all right, dates. Dates are another food that are highly effective and supported by research and evidence, low risk and have a profound impact on the cervix. So you should be eating dates in pregnancy if you like them. If you don't figure out how to like them, they're so good. Stuff them with chocolate chips and walnuts, or put them in a smoothie, or stuff them with peanut butter. Trisha likes um, goat cheese, goat cheese and an almond. An almond, that's what you like. Yeah, that's good. Oh, goat cheese and almond. You have to make that for me next time I come over. Okay, that sounds nice.

Yeah, dates. Dates are very effective. The research recommendation is to consume 60 to 80 grams of dates per day, starting in the last three to four weeks of pregnancy. And that is roughly six to eight small dates, or three to four large dates.

And again, if you're writing down how many dates to take. And you eat one date on one of these days, and you just feel you've had it. Don't eat the next one. Don't be rigid about this stuff. Don't pressure yourself on any of this. Just have a date. Be done with it. Just trust the process. You're not supposed to hate this process. I'm like, Oh, I have to eat two more dates. I mean, I love them. It's not the point. If you don't feel that way for any reason, don't eat them or put them in a smoothie. You can love them, but don't let them use them.

Don't make anything a miserable experience. No, no, yeah. I mean, so that's the whole list of the like quote, things to do. I think, as a takeaway, the most important thing to remember, and I was just alluding to it is, it is a must to relax and have fun. This is a must because, remember, hormones are driving this process. So if you take a warm, relaxing, comfortable bath, just be happy. Visualize your baby smiling, talk to your baby, get yourself into a really dreamy, centered, present state. Any of these things on this list you pursue, you must do from a place of play, having fun and deeply trusting the process, and get very much away from thoughts of getting things going, hoping this will work. This is how it should be. This is how soon. This is how much that's completely contrary to the emotions we're looking to build within your body, emotions being something that results in the secretion of hormones. So that is step number one, and it's the last step. It's the beginning and end of this whole process. You're going to relax, trust, play and have fun.

It reminds me of how I teach women about breastfeeding, birth and breastfeeding are right brained activities, not left brain you don't need to keep a spreadsheet of which activities you are doing or not doing and how well you're doing on them. What you need to do is know the basic principles of how to help your body prepare for labor and then just incorporate them freely, funly, casually, playfully, happily into your last few weeks of pregnancy.

And before you know it, you're going to have a bouncing little baby in your arms. 

Thank you for joining us at the Down To Birth Show. You can reach us @downtobirthshow on Instagram or email us at Contact@DownToBirthShow.com. All of Cynthia’s classes and Trisha’s breastfeeding services are offered live online, serving women and couples everywhere. Please remember this information is made available to you for educational and informational purposes only. It is in no way a substitute for medical advice. For our full disclaimer visit downtobirthshow.com/disclaimer. Thanks for tuning in, and as always, hear everyone and listen to yourself.