 A randomized controlled trial of hundreds of pregnant women found that having women eat around six dates a day for a few weeks before giving birth can significantly improve cervical ripening, the readiness of the cervix, the opening to the birth canal. You can also use drugs or surgery to prep the cervix. Oxytocin is the most common agent. You may have heard doctors talking about pitocin, that's the brand name. Although it's effective, it's used as associated with multiple potential adverse side effects, which can affect both the mom and the baby. If only there were a safe, simple side effect-free solution, well, dates may fit the bill. The use of oxytocin for labor induction in the date group was less than half that of the control group, and the few on dates that were induced had more successful deliveries. An earlier study in which prior date consumption appeared to shorten labor by more than six hours speculated that maybe dates themselves have oxytocin-like effects. All right, how about a head-to-head trial comparing the efficacy of dates versus oxytocin in the management of postpartum bleeding? Postpartum hemorrhage, excessive blood loss after birth, is one of the major complications of pregnancy and the leading cause of maternal mortality. As the placenta peels off, the uterus is supposed to contract to stance the bleeding. And if it doesn't, if the uterus doesn't have sufficient muscle tone, you can give an injection of oxytocin to help squeeze off the blood loss. Like all drugs, though, it can have side effects, sometimes causing a dangerous drop in blood pressure. There's also various devices that can be inserted to apply pressure, and worse comes to worse surgery. But why not try fruit first? Available cheap side effect-free? Yeah, but does it work? They set up a randomized clinical trial to find out. Immediately after the placenta comes out, women were given a one-time dose of like five dates or an intramuscular shot of oxytocin. Then they just collected all the blood to see which worked better. Overall, three hours after delivery, the blood loss average in the date group was significantly less than in the oxytocin group, by about a quarter of a cup. Check this out. Overall, the date group was mostly in the lowest category, under two-thirds of a cup of blood loss, whereas the drug group was mostly about a cup or more. Conclusions. Use of oral dates, I don't know how else you'd take them, after delivery decreased bleeding more than intramuscular oxytocin, and it's a good alternative in normal delivery. But wait, if dates have oxytocin-like effects to contract the uterus, shortening labor by helping to induce earlier uterine contractions might date consumption increase the risk of premature labor. I guess we'll never know, until now. The effect of date fruit consumption on the length of gestation. Starting in about 38 weeks, women were randomized to eat seven dates a day or not, and eating dates did not affect delivery dates. But what it did do is significantly reduce the need to hasten labor with drugs. Half of the non-date group had to be drugged, versus 30% less in the seven dates a day for a week group. An induction of labor is serious business that can increase complications such as bleeding, C-sections, uterine hyper-stimulation, and even uterus rupture. And apart from the complications, women who are induced tend to feel less satisfied with their birth experience. Therefore, date consumption in late pregnancy is a safe supplement to be considered as it reduced the need for labor intervention without any adverse effect on mother and child. The only thing we're missing now is a double-blind study, not just a randomized trial, but a placebo-controlled study. I mean, the women in the date group obviously knew they were eating dates, and maybe that had some kind of placebo effect. The only double-blind study I could find in dates and delivery is in Arabic. But the English abstract describes how women just entering their active labor phase were given a date syrup or placebo. That's brilliant, right? Hard to make a placebo date, but you could make some kind of placebo syrup, like I don't know, molasses or something, right? Note when they say honey-date syrup, they're not talking about a syrup of honey and dates, but a syrup made out of honey dates, which is a soft melt-in-your-mouth variety, easy to whip into a syrup. Normal labor progression was evidently higher in the date group, around 98% compared to less than 70% in both the placebo and control groups. And labor duration was also shorter in the date group, like two hours shorter. So on your due date, maybe we should give dates their due.