Moms-to-be are sipping this weird Starbucks drink to induce labor — experts say it's ridiculous
These pregnant mamas are eager to get things moving and grooving.
There is a long list of bizarre hacks that pregnant women will try to induce labor — but this new one has experts scratching their heads.
Soon-to-be moms on social media are hitting up their local Starbucks to specifically order the iced passion tango tea — or the passion tango tea lemonade — in the hopes of sending them to the hospital to give birth.
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One desperate 38-week pregnant woman, Lindsey Hull, posted a TikTok video eagerly ordering the viral 'labor-inducing' drink.
'I'm sure it doesn't actually work,' she said in the video that has over 350,000 views. 'But I'm willing to try literally anything.'
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The million-dollar question is, can a Starbucks iced drink actually help push a baby out?
Desperate moms-to-be will try anything to get their baby out by the end of their term.
Sergey Novikov – stock.adobe.com
Some moms would say yes.
Back in 2023, mommies-to-be were chugging venti passion tea lemonade with four pumps of raspberry syrup.
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'When you're 39 weeks [and] four days with no signs of labor so you get the Starbucks 'Pregnancy Drink' and hope for the best,' a very pregnant mom of four Mika Laidler, wrote in the caption of her trending TikTok video.
Luckily for Laidler, her version of the labor-inducing concoction actually worked.
'Update: Drank the 'Pregnancy Drink' from Starbucks, and 8 hours later [I] gave birth at 39 weeks and four days,' she said in another TikTok video posted soon after she gave birth.
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According to experts — this timing is just coincidental.
'At term, everyone should start having contractions and notice increased discharge at some point, so of course some women will correlate that with drinking this Starbucks drink,' Shannon Smith, M.D., a board-certified ob-gyn and partner at Brigham Faulkner Ob/Gyn Associates in Boston, Massachusetts, told Baby Center.
'I think that is natural bias.'
Sadly for those women who ran to order the drink after watching Hull's or Laidler's videos — 'There's no magic to it,' Rebecca Amaru, M.D., a board-certified ob-gyn in private practice at Brasner, Blumberg & Amaru in New York City also told Baby Center.
The ingredients in the iced passion tango tea drink — water, hibiscus flowers, citric acid, natural flavors, cinnamon, apple, licorice root, lemongrass and fruit juice extract, lemon juice, sugar, and lemon oil for the lemonade version — are generally safe for pregnant women.
The iced drink is supposedly tasty — but that doesn't mean it can actually help induce labor.
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However, those expecting have to be careful of the drink's high sugar content and its herbs.
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'For many herbs – including these two [hibiscus and licorice root] we either lack data entirely or have very limited information about their safety in pregnancy,' Ryann Kipping, R.D.N., owner and founder of The Prenatal Nutritionist, told Baby Center.
If pregnant women want to naturally induce labor — they can skip the Starbucks drive-thru and instead opt for light exercise, acupuncture, sex and snack on dates to get things moving and grooving, according to Healthline.
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