The effect of late pregnancy date fruit consumption on delivery progress – A meta-analysis

•Late pregnancy date fruit consumption may decrease the need for labor induction.•Late pregnancy date fruit consumption may shorten latent and second stages of labor.•Further large-scale well-planned randomized controlled trials should be conducted. To summarize the available evidence exploring the influence of date fruit consumption on delivery outcomes. A search was conducted for relevant articles in three databases for manuscripts in English, with no time restrictions. Four articles were eligible for inclusion. Women consuming date fruit were admitted with higher cervical dilatation (mean difference (MD) 1.1 cm [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.2-1.99 cm) and yielded a lower need for labor induction/augmentation (relative risk (RR) 0.6, 95% CI 0.43-0.83). Date fruit consumption was associated with shorter latent phase (MD -4.6 hours, 95% CI -7.77 to -1.4) and second stage duration (MD -7.7 minutes, 95% CI -12.0 to -3.4). Although the overall quality of the included studies was weak due to high risk of bias, the results of our meta-analysis point to beneficial effects of date fruit consumption on labor process. fruit