It's my due date so fed up

[penny455]

Hi all,
40 weeks pregnant today, had lots of on and off period type pains yesterday but disappeared when I went to sleep.
I've been taking raspberry leaf & evening primrose oil, walking lots, bouncing on ball and having hot food. I really don't want to go much more over due. What Can I do any tips ??

Hot curries? Pineapples? Fast drive over cobblestones?

Or relax and enjoy your last few days of peace and quiet. Read a book. (I've not read a book in 2 years now!) Watch a box set.

Eat plenty of

Good luck for when things eventually get moving.

It won’t stay in there forever 🤣

I went 8 days over. I was climbing the walls by the end. Nothing worked but ds did eventually make his exit. I had to remind myself the due date was a rough window not exact. And turned my phone off to avoid annoying calls!

I believe the only tactic that has any real effect is sex, but not everyone feels up for that! I think you have to keep in mind that while the wait seems torturous, baby will come, and will come soon, relatively speaking!

I'm 39 weeks and desperate for baby to make an appearance. I'm keeping busy every day and trying to walk as much as possible. DD arrived a week late so I know it might be longer than I'd like, and I'm trying not to fixate on it! Best of luck.

OP my DS turns 1 this week so find myself looking back to this time last year a lot! He was due at the beginning of October and I went the full 15 days overdue and had to be induced. In those 15 days I went progressively more stir crazy and (bar castor oil which is actually dangerous) I tried EVERYTHING people recommended to get it going- starting from the supposedly more scientific things like sex (not too comfortable!) down to pretty much any old wives tale I heard! 😂🤦🏻‍♀️

According to a relative who's training to be a midwife she says the only thing with any scientific backing is a certain kind of date (not the standard ones you get in a supermarket) but they're expensive and you'd have to consume a heck of a lot of them!

So I'm not sure I can recommend anything but just wanted to say been there and know how it feels. Your little one will be with you soon and as infuriating as it feels now in a years time you won't feel as bad about it taking so long! Xx

Thank you everyone 

A normal pregnancy is 37-42 weeks. The "due date" is just a date they use to arrange care. In France they give you a 41 week "due date". Most first babies will come between 40 and 42 weeks. This is not late. It's right on time.

None of the old wives tales work. Not sex or curry or walking or pineapple. Raspberry leaf isn't even taken to induce labour. It's just a uterine tonic meant to make pushing more effective when the time comes.

Do whatever makes you happy in these last few days. It really won't be long.

Sex does work, it has scientific reasons to back it up. Nipple stimulation also works. But to be honest, I would genuinely just sit tight and enjoy your last few days of peace and quiet, although I know its horrible to be overdue and uncomfortable.

Hang on in there!

I went 10 days over with DD. She was due on July 22nd. I remember going in for my second sweep the morning of July 31st and the midwife saying that my cervix was very favourable and that ‘hopefully you’ll have a July baby.’

DD must’ve heard and thought 🖕🏼 Seeing as though she was born 1 hour and 45 minutes into August (Yorkshire day!)

I honestly think that the second stretch and sweep hurried things along for me a bit more. I can’t remember whether we bothered having sex, I did eat pineapple and went for a long walk but ultimately it happens when it happens!

Good luck and thinking of you👥

Sex does not work. It has theory behind it but all actual studies debunk it. The theory is that a prostaglandin in semen is the same as one associated with induction of labour. However, it's not there in a great enough quantity and that particular prostaglandin is better ingested orally. Studies show no effect from having sex and actually some studies showed it resulted in a smaller chance of labour starting.

Nipple stimulation can cause the uterus to contract but only has an effect if the woman's cervix is already softening and thinning. So it might speed things along but it doesn't start things.

You may as well enjoy the last days instead of risking feeling demoralised and exhausted by sex you don't want and spicy foods you can't stomach and long walks which hurt. None of it works. Of course there's little risk to most of them if you want to do them but it's not really fair to tell pregnant women that stuff WILL work when it won't.

And also raspberry leaf tea is great, keep drinking it!
I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that I managed to get to 5-6cm dilated with no pain whatsoever (apart from the usual backache) and eventually a very quick and easy birth (8lb 13oz first baby)

Raspberry leaf makes the 2nd stage more effective (pushing) in theory. It doesn't prevent pain.

I drank gallons of the stuff (still do, I like it!) and had a v long and painful labour. 31hrs, 8hrs pushing, crash cs and a haemorrhage.

My point is that you can try anything and it won't cause harm but don't mistake coincidence for causation.

I've heard the best thing to induce labour is nipple stimulation, I've heard that that and sex are the only things that are really backed by actual evidence. Although I know some women that swear by pineapple

@ShowOfHands have you got a source for the study about sex decreasing the chances of labour starting?? I don't understand how this could be proved (i.e. how would you know it would have started, had you not had sex?)

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19960160

"CONCLUSION: Women who reported coitus were less likely to go into spontaneous labour prior to their scheduled induction"

showofhands okay ill rephrase.
Orgasm can help start off labour.

Sadly not. Orgasm won't start labour either. Again, there's a nice theory behind it- oxytocin, stimulation of contractions etc - but no discernible link in reality.

Think about it logically too. Pregnancy is made to be disruption resistant. If sex really induced labour, we would know about it and we would be advising against it during pregnancy.

Think about it logically too. Pregnancy is made to be disruption resistant. If sex really induced labour, we would know about it and we would be advising against it during pregnancy

^this

Baby will come when it comes. Hard to accept but it’s the way it is!

My midwife did say that sex helps but it's not the organism, it's something in the sperm x

I had a super hot curry and went into labour a few hours later. Coincidence? Almost certainly given I was 40+4 so labour wasn't exactly a surprise. But worth a go seeing as curry is awesome anyway.

I feel for you, I was so fucking miserable by the end and convinced I'd be pregnant forever.

@Oysterbabe currently 40+2, I don't like curry 😭 I bought some nandos hot sauce and have been cooking chicken in it for the last couple of nights and it's done nothing but give me a bad stomach, been drinking a carton of pineapple juice a day and now my heat burn is unbearable I think I give up trying 👎🏽

I couldn't think of anything worse than going into labour after a curry hahaha