QuestionHi,
I have a three week old baby girl and used castor oil as a last ditch effort to induce her. It worked perfectly and I had a 4 hour drug free labour. However I read everything I could on castor oil first. One thing kept popping up - baby passing meconium in the womb if it was used. I could not find any medical evidence or studies to back this up, just curious if you know of any?
Thanks
S.
AnswerFirst of all, congratulations on the birth of your daughter!
There was one study done in 1987:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3563790?dopt=Abstract
Some concerns people have about this study: This study was conducted by interviewing women in labor about self-medication. Interviews tend to have some problems, one of them being that people tend to tell interviewers what they think they want to hear (or not hear). Also the numbers in the study were not large, nor do we know anything about quantities etc.
Also, although there may be more meconium passed in labors where mom induces with castor oil, many moms using castor oil are significantly past their due date, using castor oil to avoid a medical induction, and there is definitely a correlation with babies born well past their due date having more meconium. So the increased meconium may be caused by the post-dates, not the castor oil.
Castor oil was a tried and true method of induction in the pre-pitocin days. However, it will only work when the cervix is already ripe, has some change, and mom is close to going into labor anyway. (Otherwise it just gives you lots of contractions, but then tje contractions stop) It does have the risk of making hemorrhoids worse, whether it works in inducing labor or not.
I hope that helps, and I'm so glad your birth went well. Enjoy your little girl!
Dorothy H, LCCE
