Are all tips for kick starting labour a load of rubbish?

[locomomma]

Ladies,
Before I descend into a frenzied feed of raspberry leaf tea, evening primrose oil, curries, acupuncture and all that stuff, should I bother? I'm 38 weeks & booked for CS in 8 days but getting cold feet about CS and hoping I go by myself before then. DC2 was 15 days late and really feel nothing could have helped him arrive sooner. Do you think we all feel the need to "do something" or do you think any of this stuff actually works? I think I'd probably do better to chill out and let nature take its course.
Thanks

Yes. It's all bullshit.

But people like to thing they're being proactive and helpful so they still do it.

And curries are nice... Have the curry.

:)

I had sex and went for a long walk, contractions started about 30hours after sex and 12 hours after my walk. I also had spicy food for tea! I was 38 weeks and DS was tiny!

Yep, all nonsense. Labour is, inevitably, going to happen. So you can do absolutely anything in the run up to the end of pregnancy and because at some point you are going to have a baby popping out of you, you can then attribute it to the tea/pineapple/sex/walk etc etc.

I had a massive bottle of beer (cobra) the day before my due date - because I really, really wanted one. Gave birth on the due date, nice quick easy labour. Boom! So if you fancy a tipple, you can use me as an excuse

Ha thanks ladies... I feel a curry and a beer coming on LOL!

Nothing worked with ds1 (40+15, induced). Ds2 was 40+10 and I did go into labour a few hours after a shag so maybe that helped. (Ds3 was 40+4 and tbh surprised us as for us that was pretty 'early').

I don't think anything works til you're ready (or you get induced but even then, how ready you are can play a part in the success of that) but some things are quite nice to try :)

Raspberry tea needs to be from 32 weeks really to work & get into your system.

I did loads of walking & um nipple stimulation before my induction at 37.5 weeks & was already 1cm so may have worked.