After roughly 40 weeks of pregnancy, usually even a month or so earlier, you are ready for the last stage of the pregnancy – the delivery. Hopefully by now you have mastered all the birth preparation courses offered by your hospital (if you chose to take them), and your hospital bag is ready (or you at least have a good idea what it should contain).

At this point it is probably safe to assume you understand that there is no way back and the only way to get this baby out is to go through with childbirth. You may be concerned and even frightened about the pain of the actual birth, wonder about contractions and how they feel, and be impatient in expectation for the big day to finally arrive.

While you wait for your little one to make its way down the birth canal and your cervix to start dilating, you can take action as well to prepare your body for the delivery. What can you do? To start, you can drink loose leaf red raspberry tea. This tea is known to help strengthen the muscles of the pelvic floor and induce labor. While not medically proven, it is widely used by midwives throughout the world, and if you are ready to meet your little one sooner, why not try?

At around 35 weeks, it is time to start thinking about tearing, episiotomies and how you may be able to avoid them. An episiotomy is a surgical cut in the muscular area between the vagina and the anus (the area called the perineum) made just before delivery to enlarge your vaginal opening. Buy almond oil and start with tri-weekly perineum massage. You may need to engage your partner in this activity, for it may be challenging to reach your perineum area with a big prego belly..

To help speed along the arrival of your baby you can try to help your pelvis to open up by bounding on a birth (aka Pilate’s) ball with your legs spread apart, or walk up stairs two at a time; it is said that taking a long walk can help, as well as swimming (belly down); having sex is another way to help speed things along. There are many other tricks to induce labor you can try, but your best bet is to enjoy the time you have of your life as you know it pre baby and let your baby do what’s best for him.

Have an easy delivery!