12 tips to promote an Overdue Labour.. Naturally

Having a reluctant labour? That is.. a baby that’s taking their sweet time to arrive? Medico’s talking about induction dates? It can be a stressful time. I understand, I’ve been there 🙂 Now looking back, I think of it as a lovely time.

There are so many things one can do to enjoy this time & help promote labour. Here are my top 12 tips:

Cook and freeze healthy meals and snacks. You’ll need them soon. Lots of food. Food that’s convenient, highly nutritious, middle of the night snack friendly. I even bought an extra (2nd hand) freezer for a few months:) Then sold it at the same price!

Express and freeze colostrum. Otherwise known as liquid gold for your baby. Nutritional and medicinal. Really helpful for those few days after the birth until your milk comes in and feeding is established. Learning how to hand express is also a handy skill to have. And expressing can encourage labour!

I started at week 36 as recommended by my midwife. Within minutes I had uterine contractions. Freaked out and stopped as I didn’t want the baby to arrive early! So I waited until I was ready, about 39 weeks. And expressed every day until she arrived, finally at 41w+6 ! Here’s some more info about Antenatal expression of colostrum.

Go for long walks. Stress relieving and labour encouraging. Include some steps if you can. The hip movement/ position can encourage optimal baby position.
Go swimming and do exercises to encourage optimal baby position. As baby’s position is key to your child-birthing experience. And now you have (relatively more) time to do it. Check out spinningbabies.com for exercises.

Have sex! It can encourage labour and your recommended not to do it for a period of time soon. So.. make the most of it now:)
Eat out! It won’t be as easy or relaxing to do soon. With one (additional perhaps) big distraction. So now’s the opportunity:)

Eat spicy food. If you like to 🙂 Is recommended to encourage labour. And it’s not recommended during early breastfeeding. So now is the perfect time to hit the chilli.

Practice surrendering control. We can’t control every aspect of childbirth and child rearing. Sometimes baby’s don’t sleep or eat when we want them to. Labour doesn’t usually start right on time. Now is a good time to practice the art of surrender.
Do Acupressure to naturally encourage labour. Free, easy and natural. Here are the points that are often used to tackle a reluctant labour. And how to do acupressure.

Have Acupuncture to naturally encourage labour. Research shows that Acupuncture may help to encourage labour by ripening the cervix. However more research is needed. Click this link to read more..

Take herbal medicine. There is a herbal formula that has been used for centuries in Chinese Medicine to encourage labour. There is no quality research to support this use however. The herb mix contains 6 plants, such as licorice root, ginger, red dates and orange peel. It’s called Ping Wei San and is available at Freedom Chinese Medicine in Ivanhoe.

Learn about breastfeeding. Now is the best time if you haven’t already, even if you’ve done it before. Most Mum’s need memory joggers. Read my Top 11 Breastfeeding Tips here.

Written by Dr. Elaine Hickman