It is not uncommon for the cervical ripening to take up to 24-36 hours!! It is also not uncommon to use different techniques to ripen the cervix. You may feel contractions during this process. If the contractions become painful, you will be able to request medication to relieve your discomfort.
Getting up and moving around may help speed up effacement when it's moving slowly. Some reasons for slow effacement are: Weak contractions. Your baby is too large.
Try a birthing ball
Rocking, bouncing, and rotating your hips on an exercise ball or birthing ball also opens the pelvis, and it may speed up cervical dilation.
Prostaglandin-based pessaries trigger uterine contractions to help with softening of the cervix. The pills are usually inserted into the vagina and placed close to the cervix to encourage labor contractions to start.
Walking around the room, doing simple movements in bed or chair, or even changing positions may encourage dilation. This is because the weight of the baby applies pressure to the cervix. People may also find swaying or dancing to calming music effective.
Relaxin is a hormone produced by the ovary and the placenta with important effects in the female reproductive system and during pregnancy. In preparation for childbirth, it relaxes the ligaments in the pelvis and softens and widens the cervix.
Medical cervical ripening
Medications also can be given to help induce softening and dilatation of the cervix. Oral or vaginal suppository drugs, such as misoprostol and other prostaglandins, are also commonly used to ripen the cervix.
As you near your due date, your body produces prostaglandins and starts contracting. These things help the cervix efface (thin, soften, shorten, etc.) and prepare for delivery. Eventually, the cervix thins and shortens to the point that it's as thin as a piece of paper.
Try being upright
One of your biggest allies is gravity. When you are upright—standing, sitting or kneeling—the weight of your baby presses on the cervix, encouraging it to open. An upright position may also help get your baby into the best position for birth.
Cervical ripening results from a series of complex biochemical processes that ends with rearrangement and realignment of the collagen molecules. The cervix thins, softens, relaxes and dilates in response to uterine contractions, allowing the cervix to easily pass over the presenting fetal part during labor.
Side-lying release
Not only can this position be used to help engage the baby into the pelvis and to encourage cervical dilation, but it can also be used during labor to help ease discomfort.
According to the results of the present study, walking during late pregnancy could be an effective, safe, and acceptable method to achieve cervical ripening and spontaneous onset of labor.
According to Brichter, sitting on an exercise or birthing ball in neutral wide-legged positions prepares the body for labor by increasing blood flow, opening the pelvis, and encouraging cervical dilation. You can also try birth ball exercises such as circular hip rotations, rocking, and gentle bouncing.
An induction massage is a method or technique used to induce labor through massage. It is an alternative for women seeking natural ways to encourage labor especially if they are afraid of acupuncture. This type of massage is suitable for mothers-to-be who are suffering from anxiety, stress, and fatigue.
Researchers now believe that when a baby is ready for life outside his mother's uterus, his body releases a tiny amount of a substance that signals the mother's hormones to begin labor (Condon, Jeyasuria, Faust, & Mendelson, 2004). In most cases, your labor will begin only when both your body and your baby are ready.
In order to get enough bromelain to potentially trigger labour, some suggest you'd need to consume seven pineapples.
Pineapple contains the enzyme bromelain, which is thought to help soften your cervix and bring on labour. In theory, eating large amounts may help to get things going. Test-tube experiments using concentrated pineapple extract appear to show that bromelain works.
In addition to generating energy, date fruit also contains necessary and unnecessary fatty acids that can produce prostaglandins playing an important role in cervix ripening, acceleration of delivery progress, increase of uterine contractions, and inducing labor [26, 27].
At the conclusion of the study, researchers discovered that the women who ate six dates a day for 4 weeks had a shorter first stage of labor, a higher mean cervical dilatation, and more had intact membranes upon arrival at the hospital. (In other words, their cervix was more ripe for giving birth.)