VIDEO TRANSCRIPT: THIS TRANSCRIPT WAS GENERATED USING AN AUTOMATED SERVICE SO WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY TYPOS AND SPELLING ERRORS.

Getting labor going naturally

Shieva Ghofrany: [00:00:00] Happy Saturday. I had a couple of requests about how to induce labor. So first of all, traditional labor induction by doctors, um, would be in the hospital. We're not gonna go over how and why you get induced. I do have a video about long labors and inductions from, I don't know, a couple months ago, but we would use either Pitocin, which is the hormone that induces labor, or we would use ripening agents like Cytotec, which is a pill Cervidil, which is a little vaginal insert. 

Um, a balloon which literally goes into your cervix and stretches it out. Um, all of which will. , um, improve your cervix ability to then have the receptors for Pitocin to work and put you into labor. That is a challenging and difficult process sometimes, and it can take one to 3, 4, 5 days, which let's not get started on whether or not I think we should have long induction or not. 

That's a whole nother, um, nut to crack. How can you [00:01:00] guys naturally get labor going? You'll hear people be like, oh, take a long walk, da. The truth is those things don't work. The things that will work potentially to improve labor, um, spontaneously happening are those things that will increase Prostaglandin. 

Prostaglandin is the hormone that we have in our body that will put us into labor. So what would cause that? You hear people saying, oh, sexy, I mean sex, sexy, spicy, no spicy food and sex. The reason why they say that is this, when our bowels contract, Our bowels are smooth muscles and they will release prostaglandin. 

Prostaglandin again, will then go into your uterus, basically where the receptors are in your uterus, in your cervix, and cause contractions. Now, let's say you have spicy food and it doesn't make you poop, it's not gonna induce labor, but if you have spicy food and it does make you poop, then it could induce labor. 

But what if I'm only 26 weeks? You ask. I can't eat spicy. You can, because [00:02:00] again, it requires the spicy food to cause you to poop and the prostaglandins effect to have the receptors to work on, and the receptors are typically not upregulated that early. So follow me on this one. You need the receptors to be upregulated in your uterus and cervix. 

I believe it might just be your cervix. I'm not sure on the science behind that, to be honest. Let's just say that area. Once those those receptors are upregulated, then. Either the Pitocin that we give you guys, or your endogenous oxytocin, which is your own body's hormone, will allow the uterus to contract when your regulators are up regulat. 

When your receptors are upregulated, then your body is more susceptible. So things like pooping. At the term, at term at the end, will help things like sex. Well, why does sex cause it? It's not the act of sex. It's actually that semen has prostaglandin in it. Again, what if I have sex at 26 weeks? [00:03:00] Well, it shouldn't cause labor. 

It might cause contractions that are just cramps but not labor. Because again, why your regulators are, I mean, your receptors are not upregulated. So we've talked. Pooping, we've talked about sex. And again, forget the spicy food unless it causes you to poop. Um, those are the two things that really have been known to cause it. 

And my theory, and I think many people agree with me, is if your body is getting ready to go into labor, like let's say you're one to two days away from going into labor, then getting your bowels to contract might cause it then. Might cause it because the dose of prostaglandin from those things is not very high. 

The third thing is you might have heard in midwife literature, they can call it stripping the membranes or scraping the membranes. Same thing that we call it. And that just means you get your finger into the cervix. When I say you, I mean your doctor or midwife, um, gets her or his. Finger up into the cervix kind of stretches it out. 

And the purpose is to detach the membrane, the [00:04:00] amniotic membrane where it's attached inside the uterus, to kind of separate it a little bit because that releases, guess what, prostaglandin. Now you may say, ah, my doctor stripped my membranes and do new anything. And the answer is probably right cuz if you just do it once and your body was not coincidentally ready to go into labor in the next day or two, it's not gonna cause anything other than a lot of cramps and maybe a little bit of brown discharge or even a little bit of bleeding. 

Now when people do it correctly, they probably are doing it over the course of a couple of days. A couple of days. A couple of days. And as your body is getting ready to go into labor on its own, it seems like one of those times, wow, look, it worked when in reality your body would've gone into labor on its own, maybe in the next day or two. 

So I do believe. That if you poop, if you introduce semen into your vagina, and if you have your membrane stripped, it can help induce labor. But I think anecdotally, it only works if your body is getting ready to go into labor. So how would you do that at home? Well, you can poop by taking [00:05:00] castor oil or an enema. 

Other countries actually still routinely use that for two purposes. One is to try to induce labor, and the second is to clean out your bowels so that while you're pushing, you don't poop. We could do a whole video on pooping during labor, which is totally. Normal and common. By the way, when I tell patients, I say to patients, if you poop, that means you're pushing the right way. 

So good for you, we don't even need to talk about it because it means you did the right thing. Um, so again, Castro oil or enema. Second thing is semen. So ask your partner or spouse who has semen to introduce the semen into your vagina. I know that sounds gross, but meaning have sex. Or just ask him for the semen because that can work. 

Um, again, if your body's ready, which means we're talking like full term. 39, 40, 41 weeks even. Um, and then the third thing is asking your doctor or midwife to strip your membranes, which I do not think is at all dangerous. I can't say I love doing it because I find 99% of the time it just causes cramps and um, maybe some spotting, like I said, unless the patient happens to coincidentally be closed, in which case they said, oh my God, you [00:06:00] stripped my membranes and it worked. 

You're so amazing. In which case I would. It was just luck, to be honest. Timing and luck. Interestingly, there was data out of, I believe, U United Arab Emirates that dates, if you eat, um, a certain number of dates, I think it was six dates. You guys could look it up, six dates per day. In the last four weeks of pregnancy, it has been shown in actual data to potentially put people into labor and to increase how effaced, which is how thin the cervix is. 

Um, and theoretically, they even said something about postpartum bleeding. My concern with dates is that there are a lot of sugar, so six dates seems to be a lot. So certainly if you're diabetic, I would never recommend. Outside of being a diabetic, you could certainly try it if you like Tates. Um, there's also some data about red raspberry leaf tea, which is known to have some hormonal properties. 

It's not something I discuss with patients just cuz frankly, I don't know enough about it. So, that's it. Hope that helps. Bye.