Labor-inducing folklore alive and well among pregnant women.(Brief Article)

2002 MAY 16 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- In spite of an avalanche of modern medical advances in obstetrics, old wives' tales about pregnancy and labor still run rampant, especially tales on how to get labor going as the due date nears. The fact that they're largely untrue doesn't seem to matter.

A new Ohio State University survey found that two out of three pregnant women believed that walking would help induce labor, while nearly half believed that having sex would.

But the best that a woman with a normal pregnancy can do is to just wait, said study author Jonathan Schaffir, a clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Ohio State.

"For healthy pregnancies, Mother Nature is the best obstetrician," he said. Schaffir surveyed 102 pregnant women coming to a prenatal clinic at Ohio State about their awareness of 10 common folk suggestions on inducing labor, and whether or not they believed any of the tips would really work.

The study appears in a recent issue of the journal Birth.

Schaffir gave each woman a questionnaire listing certain folk beliefs about hastening labor: frequent walking; having sex; heavy exercise; using a laxative, such as castor oil; nipple stimulation; eating spicy foods; fright; starvation; having an enema; and drinking herbal tea.

Women also noted in the survey where they had gotten their information from: More than three-fourths (76%) of the women said they had gleaned advice from friends and relatives. A small portion of the women (15%) had read about some ...