Sophie Cachia’s Use For Semen Is Definitely Unconventional
So every now and then, the Internet vomits up some incredibly bizarre story that has us staring at our computer screen in a temporary state of what-the-actual-fuck-induced stasis. Then a woman decided to speed up her baby’s delivery with sperm as per Google’s advice and we’re just about done.
Enter Sophie Cachia, a twenty-six-year-old up-and-coming Australian blogger and underwear designer who documented her second child’s pregnancy and subsequent labour in vivid detail.
It’s great to finally see the taboo behind labour and women’s issues being broken down and having these topics discussed for the entire online audience, female AND male, so props to Ms Cachia; but when it comes to replacing your OBGYN with Google, you might be taking things a little bit too far.
Ms Cachia was scheduled for induction at 41 weeks, which is the same week that obstetricians recommend you are induced should you not naturally go into labour by week 40 of a pregnancy.
Worried that she would overstep the 41st week despite her booked slot at her hospital, Ms Cachia proceeded to Google home-brew recipes for inducing labour.
In Malta, we are lucky to have brilliant teams of well-trained midwives who happily answer routine queries, with more pressing issues forwarded to obstetricians as necessary. Despite her being an Australian native, at this point, one begs to wonder why on earth Ms Cachia did not just consult her obstetrician.
Her Google search turned up the following remedies: dipping in a bath with a few drops of Clary Sage oil, eating pineapple, and straight-up sex. Ms Cachia proceeded to try each, finally resorting to sexual intercourse; a short while later, she began having contractions. Note that Ms Cachia was beyond 40 weeks pregnant and could have gone into labour at any point both before or after this, including prior to her scheduled induction date.
In the hospital environment, induced labour placing prostaglanding gel across the cervix, which contains hormones that stimulate cervical ripening and the beginning of labour. To Ms Cachia’s defence (and probably her quick Google search), human semen is known to contain a high concentration of prostaglandins, and sex itself releases oxytocin which gets that uterus contracting (great excuse to have sex, anyone?). To our understanding, there is currently conflicting evidence to support the theory that sex plays a role in helping kick off your baby’s delivery, and the fact that Ms Cachia was so far along in the pregnancy further complicates the veracity of her claims.
At this point, we’d like to remind Lovin Malta readers that your obstetrician spent a very very long time poring over books and studied really hard to get where they are today, so please don’t resort to Google to sort out your induced labour. If you are planning alternative means of labour, run it by a trained professional first.
We understand that labour is an extremely trying and worrying time for expecting mothers, particularly when it comes to the health of their child. Google should definitely not be your first port-of-call.