Spicy Foods to Induce Labor

Will eating spicy food induce labor? Find out the truth.

Feb 12, 2007
Brenda Lane

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.

Brenda Lane - Brenda Lane is a published author, Lamaze certified childbirth educator, DONA certified birth doula and approved birth doula trainer.

Comments

Feb 20, 2007 8:54 PM

Naomi Rockler-Gladen :

I ate a ton of spicy foods during month 9 because I finally got my heartburn under control. I also had my baby 10 days late, so no correlation there for me! I tend to be kind of wary of theories of labor induction, although I do remmeber that by 38 weeks or so, I was sure ready to experiment.

Feb 21, 2007 1:39 PM

Brenda Lane :

There are no guarantees with any of these methods really. I just talk to moms over the years who testify that the spicy dish was the ONLY thing they did differently and then bam - here goes contractions.

Keep in mind that if your body is not ready, none of these methods will work anyway.

Brenda

Sep 22, 2008 4:48 AM

Guest :

Made jerk chicken (made it real spicy) at a bbq last night, found out that a friend that was pregnant went into labor.

Romain

Nov 6, 2008 8:48 PM

Guest :

I was 37 weeks pregnant and had a spicy chicken curry. Within 10 hours I was 5 cm dilated.

Apr 30, 2009 6:15 AM

Guest :

We are indians, and we always have spicy food. My wife has been for the past nine months. Suppose it only works if you are not used to it.
BTW wife is a week over.

Jun 23, 2009 6:28 AM

Guest :

My cousin went into labour a couple of hours after having JERK chicken too!
I have always eaten curries but staying away from them while pregnant due to heartburn and bleeding/contraction scare I had when 16weeks pregnant due to spicy fried chicken I had that day which gave me the runs.
I absolutely love curries but I can wait till week 39 at least lol! not to risk anything! But I suppose as Brenda commented if your body is not ready it ahouldnt but i wouldnt risk it. xx

Dec 18, 2010 6:31 PM

Guest :

I think it worked for me, too. I had eaten some spicy noodles the night before my contractions started. I was only 37 weeks and 4 days pregnant. I'm currently 37 weeks pregnant again and trying the same thing : )

Mar 15, 2011 8:34 AM

Guest :

it is ok but as certain people have also said in other articles that this has worked but this hasnt i just believe that what works for others may not work for you iv been eatting hot currys for weeks now and nothink iv tried rasberry leaf tea and still nothink im now 4 days overdue and getting really stressy about this whole situation as nothink seems to work and then listening to people telling you to try things and u do and it doesnt work annoys u even more.

8 Comments