Yeah, this was always BS. At best, if you have no other problems with your pregnancy, and if you're healthy and not too fatigued, you can work up to going into labor. If IF you take it easy m, go slow, and take a lot of breaks. Because let's face it, if you go full term those last 2 weeks to a month you are so uncomfortable you're rotating between sitting, laying, and standing to make the back pain tolerable. You're eating a bite, maybe 2 every 30 min so you don't throw up or get heartburn. You trying to elevate your feet so they don't swell from the extra pressure put on them, especially during the summer. And you're trying to sleep as much as possible.

Before modern medicine, blood loss kept a lot of women in bed after childbirth for a long time to replenish their blood volume. They weren't cooking dinner for anyone.

And lastly, in the past, women also "nested" somewhere secluded and safe. They might have worked until in labor but nobody dropped babies in a field unless they had no other choice or the baby came that fast, which sometimes happens. That's just nuts.