When to start evening primrose oil pregnancy
Natural Labor Induction Series: Evidence on Evening Primrose Oil
hi everyone my name is Rebecca Decker
I'm a nurse with my PhD and the founder
of evidence-based birth in today's video
we're going to talk about using evening
primrose oil as a natural induction
method
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so some people have asked me as evening
primrose oil can be used as a safe way
to naturally induce labor or to get
labor started earlier rather than later
there is actually very very little
research evidence on using evening
primrose oil to induce labor
there was one review published by two
authors named bales and GU Satine
in the year 2009 and they looked at the
use of evening primrose oil or EPO for
cervical ripening and labor induction
the authors concluded that since the
effects of EPO are unknown it should not
be recommended for use during pregnancy
childbirth or breastfeeding they cited a
case study of a newborn who experienced
skin problems bruising and little
pinprick bleeding spots after being born
to a mother who took a total of six
point five grams of EPO during the week
before giving birth they also referenced
a study that took place in 1999 that
looks back in time and a sample of women
who received care in a free-standing
birth center 54 women took oral EPO
during pregnancy they took 500
milligrams three times a day
starting at 37 weeks for the first week
of treatment and then followed by 500
milligrams once a day until labor began
and 54 women had no treatment this study
was looking back in time at these
women's charts and they found no
difference between groups and the length
of pregnancy or the length of labor
however they did find that there was a
trend towards women in the ochio group
to have longer active phase of labor and
a longer period where their water was
broken before they gave birth they also
found a trend towards arrest something
they called a rest of descent where the
baby had trouble coming down need for
pitocin and need for vacuum extraction
or vacuum delivery and the group that
took the EPO however this was relatively
small study and these differences were
not all statistically significant so
they would meet they would have
had more women in the study to determine
if these were true differences between
the groups in 2006 there was also a
randomized control trial that included a
total of 71 people who were pregnant
assigned to either taking EPO by mouth
or taking a placebo pill the EPO group
saw a significant improvement in Bishop
score and a significant decrease in
their cervical length meaning their
cervix ripened more compared to the
placebo group but there was no
difference between groups with regard to
the time from when they got treatment
told when they started labor or between
the two groups there was no difference
in the need of pitocin they did find
that more women in the EPO group gave
birth vaginally 70 percent versus 50
percent in the placebo group so in
summary there is almost no research on
this topic the one randomized trial that
found the EPO did improve cervical
ripening but it made no difference in
how quickly women went into labor the
birth center study found more labor
complications or a trend towards more
labor complications in the group that
took EPO and the case report of the baby
with skin problems after their mother
took EPO is troubling but we can't know
for sure if the EPO is related to that
or not so at this time the use of EPO
during pregnancy or to induce labor is
experimental mostly based on anecdotes
and we don't have any scientific
evidence that it is effective or safe I
hope you found this video helpful thanks
and bye to learn more and subscribe to
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