In this article, I am going to share everything I did to induce my labor naturally, without any product or sweep. Bear in mind that I gave birth at 41 weeks and it may just have been time for my baby to come out. I will never really know if what I did was the only cause for my labor starting but I am glad I tried because I was tired of pregnancy.

Since I wanted a natural birth in a birth center, I had to deliver my baby between the 37th and 42nd week of pregnancy. After that, I would have had to go to a doctor who would have medically induced my labor. That was not what I wanted and I had been preparing my whole life for a natural birth so when I was 40 weeks + 6 days pregnant, I was freaking out! I had already tried a lot of things to induce and yet, I was still very pregnant. I knew I’d have my last midwife appointment the next day and that she would schedule another appointment with a doctor at the hospital… I had to give it my all.

So here is what I did:

• I went for a walk with my husband and did curb walking. It was not easy because I lived in the city and there were so many parked cars on the side of the road that I could barely do it for a minute.
• I did nipple stimulation. That had worked before to give me contractions but they never lasted long enough to start labor. That day though, I felt like it helped. I felt light contractions every 30 minutes. At that point in pregnancy, I felt contractions quite often so I wasn’t too sure.
• I did the miles circuit. I had done it twice the week before too. At least, at that point I was a pro. After the miles circuit, I still had contractions every 30 minutes. It had been a good two hours.
• I stayed active. I did the dishes, cooked a meal, cleaned, and exercised on the yoga ball all evening. I was still getting contractions every 30 minutes.

At that point, I was quite sure something was happening but I didn’t say anything to my husband, I didn’t want to jinx it haha!

When I finally went to bed at 10 pm, I started feeling contractions every 20 minutes, around 11 pm there were 10 minutes apart and at 00:30 am, my water broke.

If you are freaking out right now, please don’t let your ”due date” make you go crazy, and remember that according to the research, 75% of women giving birth for the first time gave birth by 41 weeks and 2 days (Source: https://evidencebasedbirth.com/evidence-on-due-dates/). In the end, my daughter was born exactly 8 months and 29 days after my last ovulation. That’s 39 weeks. Her ”due date” was on June 4th… I’m not a doctor but it sounds fine to me.

Let me know if you tried any of these tips and what else you tried that I haven’t mentioned, I’d love to know!