Should I be eating dates to prepare for labour?

The short answer is, yes!

If you can manage to add dates to your daily diet from 36 weeks of pregnancy, studies have shown that this can positively impact your birth.

Eating 6-8 dates a day from 36 weeks pregnant has been shown to:

• Increase rates of spontaneous labour (vs. being induced)

• Increase cervical dilation when arriving in hospital (or midwives arriving at home bird)

• Decrease initial phase of labour (mean of 510 minutes vs 906 minutes)

The study states “It is concluded that the consumption of date fruit in the last 4 weeks before labour significantly reduced the need for induction and augmentation of labour, and produced a more favourable, but non-significant, delivery outcome”

Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21280989/

They all seem like pretty good reasons to get some dates in to me. Why not get creative with it and chuck a couple into a smoothie, or a nice warming stew. Or for those with a more sweet-tooth, dip them in chocolate & have them as a little post dinner treat.

Get some inspiration here https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/date