Research-backed
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The moment you get two pink lines on your pregnancy stick, you start preparing for the delivery. I’m sure almost all the women out there would have at one point or the other freaked out about delivering a baby. You might want to believe that yours will be delivered by a stork but you know that’s not the real deal. Pregnancy is hard but the few hours of labor and childbirth can be harder because hello! it’s painful. So, you resort to everything that can help shorten the duration and make things easier while you’re in labor. Did you ever think that dates could actually help you achieve this? Let’s dig a little deeper.
All that yoga, Lamaze classes, prenatal vitamins, and perineal massages may or may not help you shorten labor but eating dates will- sound’s really unbelievable, doesn’t it? Eating date fruit during pregnancy and its benefits may sound like a midwife’s tale but it is a proven fact. Even though you can’t completely count on it, the results of the study are quite promising. A study published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology found that the consumption of date fruit has a positive impact on the outcome of labor and delivery.
What Exactly Was The Study?
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Often, labor is induced and augmented by using Prostaglandin and Oxytocin- this is considered to be a standard practice worldwide (1). Even though they are safe when used judiciously, they have been associated with maternal and neonatal morbidities. The study aimed at finding a safer alternative and its effectiveness in the induction and augmentation of labor. So, a controlled and random experiment was conducted to find out if the consumption of date fruit in the later stages of pregnancy can help with labor.
The study was conducted among 154 women with uncomplicated singleton pregnancy. They were divided into two groups of 77 and one group consumed 6 dates per day while the other did not. It was found that date fruit consumption during the last stages of pregnancy reduced the need for labor augmentation but it did not expedite the onset of labor. This means that you can reduce the time during which you’re in labor and you need reduced intervention to speed up the delivery process.
There Are More Studies
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Another study was conducted at Jordan University of Science and Technology to explore the effect of date consumption on labor and delivery (2). This study was conducted during the time period between 2007 and 2008. 69 women consumed six dates per day during the last four weeks of their pregnancy. The result was compared with 45 women who did not consume any dates during this period.
It was found that women who consumed dates had higher cervical dilation on an average when compared to those who did not consume dates. Also, spontaneous labor occurred for 96% of the women who ate dates and the percentage was only 79% for those who did not eat dates. The use of oxytocin/ prostin was significantly less for those who consumed date fruits (28%) when compared to those who did not (47%).
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Now, this is all we know about the matter but it opens a lot of new doors for further research. Maybe in the future, we will find safer, alternative ways to induce and augment labor and delivery. The whole thing may sound promising but it’s very important to understand that each one of our bodies is different. The effectiveness of date consumption may not be the same for all of us and none of the subjects studied had any complications in their pregnancy. On the other hand, we really don’t know if date consumption can cause any negative impacts in your case. So, it is always better to seek the advice of your doctor before trying out anything no matter how popular the trick is.
