Right. I’m 38 weeks pregnant, on semi-bedrest, and bored. Give me all your old wives tales and silly and horrifying suggestions for having this baby.
I am not going to follow any of the advice. I am not going to use castor oil, stinging nettles, or long walks. I just want to hear ridiculous solution to too-long pregnancy.
Have sex.
Supposedly, the uterine contractions from an orgasm can help get it started, and there’s something in sperm that softens your cervix and helps it dialate.
No idea if it works, but it’s certainly one of the more pleasant-sounding suggestions I’ve heard.
Also, eat spicy food. I have no idea why this one is supposed to work.
Vacuum cleaner with a hose attachment?
Maybe jumping up and down on the bed will shake something out?
Jumping jacks? 
Sitting in a squatting position is supposed to let gravity help the process - I’ve actually seen recommendations for doing labor in this position.
In some parts of Appalachia, they drink castor oil to induce. I did it with my first. It’s nasty. I was told to drink it with root beer, and eat peanut butter cups with it. It acts as a laxative and pretty much cleans you out, which does indeed stimulate labor if you’re ready. I was only dilated to 1 cm the next morning after I used it, when I went to the hospital for pitocin inducement. So really it wasn’t worth it for me, but it could be for you. Also, sex or nipple stimulation is supposed to bring on labor sometimes. Do check with your doctor or midwife before taking any suggestions given.
I’ve heard the spicy food one, too.
Seems to me, though, that by Murphy’s Law, the surefire way to induce labor is to get yourself onto a transatlantic flight, or go camping in a remote wilderness or some such. The baby will come the moment you’re sufficiently unprepared for it.
Or get stuck in an elevator, like they do on the TV!
Here’s my home-remedy induction story.
I was 39 weeks pregnant, and getting impatient. My first baby came at 37 weeks, so I had the irrational idea in the back of my mind that I should have gone into labor already. I had been having Braxton-Hicks for weeks, just like with my first.
We were going to try sex, but my husband said we shouldn’t do it at bedtime, because who wants to be in labor overnight? So one Saturday we Did It, with plenty of nipple stimulation and none-too-gentle coitus. But no contractions ensued. So we went on with our day.
We went to the mall, shopped, ate lunch, etc. Of course, now that I look back on it, I can say that my back was feeling pretty sore, and sure I was having some contractions, but it wasn’t labor by any means. And my back hurt a lot anyway because I’ve got a wonky SI joint that’s much worse when I’m pregnant.
So, we came home, blah, blah, blah, I went to bed at 9:30. And woke up at 10:30 in labor. I was up all night, and she was born at 7:00 the next morning. Boy did it suuuuuck!
So remember, home inductions can have a “time release” feature.
Blizzard!
Or sex.
I thought they went for a taxi ride.
Watching Mission Impossible III worked for my wife.
Simple solution. You need to bungee jump off a bridge, and have hubby down below with an oversized catcher’s mitt to grab the baby, which I understand comes with its own bungee cord.
When I worked in a video store, we had a customer who in her, I don’t know, 62nd week or something like that. We figured her unborn child would be starting kindergarten soon. She was desperate to give birth.
She and her husband had heard that laughter induces, so every night they came into the store and rented 4 comedies. This went on for, oh, another 3 months or so. One day they just stopped coming in.
So I guess that works. Eventually.
I do know about the sex-to-induce method. Not working so far. My first was waters break at 41 weeks, labour didn’t start, 18 hour induction, emergency c-section. So we’re trying for vbac this time.
Can’t do any non-sex exercise due to blood pressure problems.
Castor oil is supposed to work by giving you miserable diarrhea and bowel spasms that may cause uterine contractions. Have no desire to try that. Spicy food I can do.
I bet the best method would be for my toddler to get miserably sick and for me not to get any sleep and feel crappy, and then labour will start.
Hire decorators and have them start painting the entire downstairs of the house. Worked for my mom.
I don’t know if these cookies work, but I can vouch that they’re delicious.
Eat a lot of fresh pineapple. Also, putting a few Evening Primrose Capsules up the hoo-ha and allowing them to melt (obviously, you’ll want to do this at night) can help the cervix ripen.
In my experience? Leave the dishes undone one night during a snowstorm, when hubby forgets to gas up the car after work. Make sure that the person who’s supposed to walk and feed your dog while you’re at the hospital is unavailable for the next 12-24 hours. Bonus if it’s Valentine’s Day, and your midwife is on an overnight trip with her husband.
Seriously, though: In addition to sex (prostaglandin in semen helps ripen the cervix, uterine contractions during orgasm,) and nipple stimulation (causing hormonal release to help uterine contractions,) I’ve also read/heard about foods that allegedly help. Among those foods are pineapple, romaine and watercress salads with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and about a thousand different Italian main dishes - from eggplant parmegiana to pizza with certain toppings. Others swear by evening primrose oil capsules, applied internally.
I’m at 37 weeks today, and really wish that I thought any of this would work. As far as I can tell, the baby will get here when he’s good and damned ready, and most of these remedies are a bunch of hogwash. (But hey, sex is fun, and I like pineapple!)
My babies were always very, very late. With the most stubborn one we tried just about everything but castor oil.
My partner remembers those weeks as a blissful sexathon. Nothing seemed to work, though. The night I finally got labor going I had used a combo of acupressure (there is a spot near your inner ankle) and nipple stimulation for hours.
The thing I felt silliest trying was walking around the block with one leg stepping on the curb and one leg off.
Yeah, I remember reading about how labor begins and the complex interplay between the fetus and mother. IIRC, the initial hormone signal is given by the fetus. Which makes sense. It also explains why having an induction makes you something like 6 times more likely to have a c-section. It’s hard to make labor start artificially, and I think anything in this thread that “works” is really only kicking up a process that was well on its way.
BTW, Lacunae Matata, did that situation actually occur for you? Yikes! It’s like the planets all aligning - in a bad way!