A few questions about curries helping start labour.....

[SpaceTrain]

1. Has it worked for anyone?

2. Are Thai curries as effective as Indian curries?

3. Do you have to go super-super spicy for it to work?

Thanks!

They don't work! I'd love to say they do but IME, they don't!
Same with pineapple and lots of sex!
Tried them all with all 4 and it didn't work!
PS I'm never sure if it's wise to eat curry close to labour anyway IYSWIM ..not sure I'd WANT it to work quickly really if I've had a jalfrezi (and MW might not be keen either!!!!)

Umm, I ate a curry a few hours before going into labour and would not recommend it. Not fun on the way back up, oh no .

Oh drat. Is there anything that works? Maybe I'll start a thread asking for labour-triggering tips that actually work.

oh Sydney - that does not sound nice!!

didn't work for me.

i would beware of having anything too spicy. you're likely to poo during labour.... one burning ring of fire is quite enough, trust me! lol

none of them work. honestly. it's all old wives tales.
I tried EVERYTHING to shift ds1. curries, whole pineapple, walking, sex, hot bath, gin, raspberry leaf tea.
nothing worked.

baby will come when it is ready.

The reason that it's supposed to work is that geting the muscles in the bowel going can have a knock on effect on other things (not explaining myself very well, old NCT class memories)

Pineapple doesn't work either. The only effective thing is sex, or having a fiddle yourself

oh, and raspberry leaf tea is apparently good at getting the uterine muscles toned (no idea how this works!) but has NO effect on bringing on the birth.

agree with thisisyesterday - it'll come when it's ready. was induced 2 weeks over with DD and DS came along of his own accord 10 days 'late'. has to come out eventually!

A week ago today I had just gone into labour and was eleven days late. I had tried everything mentioned by the other posters. My last ditch attempt to get things going had been to have a bounce on my kids trampoline during the afternoon - it seemed to do the trick!

Seriously though, I don't think anything will start labour unless the baby is ready to arrive. You just have to be patient ( V difficult I know..)

I had a lamb samber 2 days before going into labour but TBH I think it was purely coincidence.

SpaceTrain, I find being two weeks post dates and having doctors chasing me round the ward with syntocin helped a bit . However I had two caesarians in the end so don't ask me!

I'm with Sydney B. The midwives were picking chunks of regurgitated curry off the bed, the pillows, my whole body and my hair, and saying 'What did she EAT? Oh my God, WHY?' to my husband.

I was ten days overdue, why the hell did they think I was eating it?

I asked my MW about the curries and she said that it's rubbish.

She's coming over on Friday to go through my pre-birth questions and said that she will confirm the tried and tested methods of "softening the cervix" as opposed to starting the labour. In my case I'm having to be induced because of Gestational Diabetes so by softening the cervix before hand, it means that the induction might work slightly better...

I'll share tips when I get them!

Didn't work for me, neither did sex, pineapple, bloody long walk or jump on a trampoline. DS didn't come out until I was induced at 12 days over. I have heard that castor oil works, but its about getting the bowel to contract (to give you the shits) which is supposed to get everything else to start contracting. TBH, the last thing you need in labour is bad guts on top of contractions.

I went out for a Pizza Express American hot with a bottle of tabasco on the side - went into labout 4 hours later but DO NOT reccomended that much chilli before giving birth !
(also had a pedicure that day and sat on one of those massage chairs - may have helped too)