What to do When Overdue

Going overdue is nothing strange. In fact quite a number of pregnancies especially for first time mothers go past the due date. Its been said that only 5% of babies arrive on their due date. When calculating the expected date of delivery usually you are told to give a two week window before and after the estimated due date for your baby to arrive. While some babies go overdue some are born premature but we will discuss that another time.

For the pregnancies that are going as they should anywhere from 36 weeks one can expect to feel the signs of the pregnancy winding down. By this time some of you have swollen ankles, legs, a big pump, trouble getting up, sitting down, not sleeping long enough, if at all!! Some of you at this stage have to sleep in a semi stting position as your pump now puts more pressure on you. Quite frankly its a miserable and exciting time all in one and many of us sometimes end up feeling depressed. As a first timer the popular question always is 'how will I know I'm going into labour?' and the response usually is 'you'll just know'. Not much help I agree. For now we'll look at a few activites you can engage in to get things on its way when going overdue and in the next post we look at how the labour progresses from there.


1 Eating curry or spicy food is good to kick start labour. This works for some but not all report success. In fact all it does is satisfy hunger.

2 Eating pineapple

3 Drinking raspberry tea is said to help labour along but find out from your midwife.

4 Going for a walk can help to make the baby's head move lower down into the pelvis. This is a much slower approach and doesn't guarantee that you will go into labour soon.

5 Gently twicking or rubbing your nipples can trigger the hormone oxytocin which helps to trigger contractions when close to labour.

6 Having sex is said to help the labour along with the release of the hormone oxytocin and this causes the uterus to contract. The semen also contains prostaglandins which helps to soften the cervix.

If all these fail there are more unconventional methods like drinking castor oil with pepsi , sprite or orange juice. Many report just having a bad case of the runs and others have great success. Before trying the castor oil please speak with your health professional. At the end of it all your baby will come when he is good and ready and if your doctor or midwife thinks its necessary to intervene what will happen is they will induce labour themselves with a membrane sweep, breaking the waters or using the medicine oxytocin medically called pitocin.