natural induction techniques...

[luckylady]

My poor stomach is, quite literally, stretched to the max. It HURTS. I am 3cm dilated, 80-90% effaced, have had "real" contractions - very strong ones, not BH, lost my mucus plug...bottom line is I am getting very impatient!

So, I was thinking of trying the rasberry leaf tea and evening primrose oil. I definitely DO NOT want to take castor oil.

any more thoughts?

[strawberryprincess]

have you tryed nipple stimulation? if you have a breast pump, you can pump one side at a time for 15 min...rest 15 min...pump the other breast 15 min... rest 15 min... etc. don't pump both sides at once, as that can cause pit. like contractions (too strong) if you don't have a pump manual stimulation can also do the trick...you can do both sides at once for 15 min. rest 15 min, etc., and of course your dp can help with this

there are several pressure points on the body that can help, one on the inside of your leg, the roof of your mouth (thumb-sucking) and between your thumb and forefinger, and one on the foot somewhere...look on the internet for more info on these.

i've heard bad things about castor oil as well as blue and black cohosh (although there is a homeopathic remedy that uses these...colyphyllum???i think or something close to that, which i assume would be gentler than the straight stuff) anyway, they also can cause really difficult painful contrx

have you been walking as much as possible?

more mainstream approaches are sex and spicy foods.

good luck getting that labor started!

[gnutter]

ONe thing about the nipple stimulation is that it won't work unless you are ready to go. Which is a good thing. I sooo feel your pain though mama. Every contraction and i get like excited and freaked-I want it to be the real thing but at the same time I'm like OMG I am in the middle of the grocery store or something.

Epo ripens your cervix-which isn't a problem for you-or me. I don't know if it would make much of a difference.

Today I tried to concentrate really hard on going in to labor-that doesn't work either

I feel like my belly button is going to give out though-can you get a hernie in your belly button. Any moment a foot is going to poke right through it!!!

[gnutter]

oh and I had a prental massage wednesday-hoping to maybe dilate a little more or something-and while it felt great I don't know if it did anything. She knew which pressure points would encourage labr but other than making him really wiggle around I don't think there was a major effect there. My goal is actually to get as dialted as possible BEFORE I go into labor. Minimize the pain and all-KWIM

[Hevyne]

Evening Primrose Oil is for ripening the cervix from what I have learned. I have been on it orally (3 capsules a day) for the past 4 weeks. I am due in 2 weeks and am 2 cm dialated. You have to take it a while for it to work from what I have read. Black cohosh is also for ripening and blue cohosh is for inducing contractions. I have just started the black cohosh yesterday, so I don't know how it is working yet. They are going to medically induce me if I don't try something so that is why I am trying these methods. I keep losing fluid, plus my cervix never wants to dialate fully so they always manually open it which hurts like a MOTHER!! I have not tried RRL tea or goldenseal. If you go to gentlebirth.org and type induction in the search engine at the bottome of the page, it will bring up natural induction techniques and how to do each one.

[gnutter]

so if your cervix is ripening on its own-will using EPO internally do anything to make it ripen more-I am almost 4cm and very effaced-I have to get to a just over 4 for my water to break on its own-I know this from previous experience.I just figured it wouldn't do more if I was doing it on my own. The difference in my case would only be a few days-not enough to even mess with-I was just curious.

[Smithie]

Things I tried with ds during the last days of my last course of abx, when I was desperate to deliver him before I got another UTI:

1. EPO, vaginally applied
2. Cervical massage on the "2 o'clock spot" - that's 2 o'clock according to dh as he faced me and did the massaging
3. Homepathic blue cohosh alternated every 15 minutes with black cohosh tincture
4. Reflexology massage
5. Having the student midwife practice membrane stripping on me
6. Castor oil mixed with vodka and orange juice

The first five I recommend. The castor oil mixture, I absolutely do not. In addition to making me sick as a dog and shitting uncontrollably during labor, it don't even think it worked. I think that the cervical massage and the cohoshes DID work.

[luckylady]

thanks mommas - yeah, that's why i do not want to do the castor oil thing. Labor will be intense enough!

[Throkmorton]

I will end up with a section if Babe is 30 seconds late, apparently. Because of this, we have also been attempting some natural induction methods before that time.
I started the homeopathic blue and black cohosh, in fairly low doses to avoid the, um, uncomfortable effects on the recommendation of my mw. I am just hoping babe comes down a bit, because she is currently high and floating and will never some out on her own unless she drops!

[zonapellucida]

black and blue cosh and pennyral induction....

[SugarAndSun]

I went to a seminar with Ina May when I was pg with ds, I remember some of her suggestions were sex and walking up hills or stairs.

[Mom2-4Gs]

I've been using the EPO internally for almost 2 weeks, it's softening the cervix. My midwife said to try putting some on your finger and rubbing around your cervix. I cant't reach that far.

I was told by a friend to massage between thumb and finger in the web part.
Also there is a spot on your leg above your ankle by 4 fingers where it's tender that massaging that helps.

I thought about the castor oil and my midwife said I could come in and they would check to see if it's worth doing because otherwise like someone else said it will just clean you out if not ready.

I haven't decided yet if I want to do that I was due April 26th so I'm not a week overdue yet.

Allison
Mom to 4 daughters and ? due end of April

[radicalmama]

I'm so skeptical of these techniques, due to the experience I had in my last labor.

I arrived at my midwife for a check up and found that I was 3cm, but I wasn't contracting strongly. She said I could try castor oil to get things going if I liked. I did, and within an hour, I was contracting and called the midwives who came to the house and found that I was 5cm.

I had a lovely labor for the next few hours, got to 8cm almost painlessly. Then contractions stopped completely. I spent 12 hours at 8, even after the midwife broke my water. By the time contrax started again the next morning, I'd been up all night and was exhausted and couldn't deal the intense discomfort (and my midwife got sick!)...ended up transferring to the hospital and having my first ever epidural.

Seeing as my first birth was only four hours,

I wonder if I just wasn't totally ready, and maybe should have declined the castor oil and waited.