What's In A 'Maternity Salad'? Restaurant Offers Dish Pregnant Moms Swear Helps Induce Labor

Some pregnant moms swear by this special dish being served at a Los Angeles restaurant. They claim the "maternity salad" works for anxious mothers who might have tried everything to facilitate birth. The salad has helped induce labor for countless overdue women.

Caioti Pizza Cafe, located in Studio City in L.A., serves the maternity salad and has been doing so for the past 28 years. The dish's main ingredients are lettuce, watercress, walnuts and pasteurized gorgonzola cheese, as well as a secret dressing, according to Be Yahoo.

Moms claim the secret dressing is what helps induce labor. Workers at the restaurant reportedly sign a confidentiality agreement for this secret ingredient. Some say the dressing has castor oil.

The owner of the restaurant, Carrie LaDou, won't confirm the assumptions about the dressing. She, however, advises overdue moms not to leave this out when they order the salad, as some patrons request to modify the dish based on their preference.

"We're not saying it's the dressing - we don't know what it is," LaDou said, according to Today. "So, I always tell them, 'If you're here to have a baby, you need to have the salad as it's meant to be.'"

The restaurant serves the salad to five to 20 pregnant moms daily. It has a special wall for "salad babies," where they post the names of moms who have given birth after having the dish, according to Huffington Post. They even have children in their '20s who come to the restaurant to tell the owner their mom ate the maternity salad to give birth to them.

Doctors, doulas and midwives in L.A. recommend the restaurant to overdue moms. Celebrity parents have tried the magic of the maternity salad as well.

"A lady came in 28 years ago who was past due and ate the salad, then felt contractions and went into labor," LaDou shared. "From there, the salad's popularity just kept increasing."