Spicy Foods to Induce Labor
Will eating spicy food induce labor? Find out the truth.
Eating spicy food has often been thought to naturally induce labor. Stimulating the mother's digestive system may in fact also stimulate contractions.
I have heard that everything from eating spicy shrimp to eating eggplant parmesan will naturally induce labor contractions. As more and more mothers turn to pitocin inductions, this may be an answer to the rest who would rather avoid the downsides of medically-induced labors.
What does the research say about eating spicy foods to induce labor?
To date there has not been any research that indicated that eating any spicy foods will induce labor or start contractions. However anecdotally, many women testify that as soon as they ate a spicy dish, within several hours they went into labor.
How could eating spicy food work to induce labor naturally?
If you understand the physiology of what can stimulate contractions, it makes sense that eating spicy foods may in fact induce labor in some cases. Spicy food can stimulate your digestive system and may even irritate it. The irritation may cause you to have diarrhea. If the diarrhea causes dehydration, we know that one of the side effects of dehydration in pregnant women is to cause contractions to start.
Spicy food may also induce labor by increasing prostaglandin production. The hormone prostaglandins helps to contract the smooth muscles of the body and are known to play a role in inducing labor.
The bottom line about eating spicy food as a way to induce labor...
So should you eat spicy food as a way to induce labor naturally? That is your decision to make. There do not appear to be any disadvantages to eating spicy foods to try to get labor going, with the exception of maybe some gas pains or diarrhea. Moms need to realize however that this is an unresearched area and that there are definitely no guarantees that spicy food will induce your own labor.
What are some of your favorite spicy dishes? Did eating anything seem to induce your labor? Share your suggestions on our discussion forum.
See the series on other ways to Naturally induce labor.
