diff --git a/lib/couchdb.js b/lib/couchdb.js
index 1c0cfbf..5fee569 100644
--- a/lib/couchdb.js
+++ b/lib/couchdb.js
@@ -143,6 +143,12 @@ exports.createClient = function(port, host, user, pass, maxListeners) {
     // CouchDB 1.0 requires application/json for _bulk_docs and other POST APIs.
     options.headers['Content-Type'] = options.headers['Content-Type'] || 'application/json';
 
+    // Add content length, eg for nginx proxy servers
+    if (options.data && typeof options.data != 'string') {
+      options.data = exports.toJSON(options.data);
+    }
+    options.headers['Content-Length'] = options.headers['Content-Length'] || (options.data) ? Buffer.byteLength(options.data, 'utf8') : 0;
+
     var
       request = httpClient.request(
         options.method.toUpperCase(),
@@ -160,10 +166,6 @@ exports.createClient = function(port, host, user, pass, maxListeners) {
     request.addListener('error', onError);
     request.addListener('close', onClose);
 
-    if (options.data && typeof options.data != 'string') {
-      options.data = exports.toJSON(options.data);
-    }
-
     if (options.data) {
       request.write(options.data, options.requestEncoding || 'utf8');
     }