From Sharon Jones
Prompted by Rebecca Rose’s letter on sex and labour (11 May, p 57) and your recent report on the benefits of semen (29 June, p 5), I wanted to clear up the point on old wives’ tales about sex inducing labour.
Many hospitals use a synthetic form of the prostaglandin found in semen to induce labour if women are past their delivery date. This is administered via a drip into the woman over a period of a few hours.
So, far from being an old wives’ tale, it is a proven fact that sex (or rather the male product of it) can induce labour. However, having been pregnant myself, I do accept the point about the physical difficulty of performing this act when you are the size of a small country.
Swindon, Wiltshire
