My body’s been giving me some pretty intense prodromal labor for a few nights after less intense for a few weeks (aka: lots of regular contractions that don’t give me a baby!) So I decided to pull out my favorite birth books for a refresher on the typical signs of labor. It’s not that I’m worried about not knowing when it’s real (this is my 4th, after all!) or not getting to the hospital (we are fully prepared for our homebirth) I was more just curious about what a “textbook” labor looks like.
Here’s what the consensus is:
Signs of labor may include:
- Bloody show/loss of your mucus plug
- Baby engaging low in the pelvis or “lightening”
- Water breaking which can happen any time before or during labor/delivery
Early labor involves:
- your cervix effacing and dilating to about 4 centimeters
- regular contractions which increase in frequency and intensity over time
- contractions may not be very strong and can easily be ignored or worked through.
Active labor involves:
- your cervix continuing to efface and dilating to about 7 centimeters
- regular contractions that last about a minute and are 3-5 minutes apart
Transition involves:
- your cervix finishing effacing and dilating
- regular contractions that are a minute or longer and every 2-3 minutes
- the most intense part of labor, many women feel out of control, “done” or “over” labor
Delivery/birth/pushing stage is:
- contractions that are longer than a minute and 2-4 minutes apart
- generally 20 minutes to 2 hours long but can last longer
- May feel intense pressure or burning around the rectum and/or vaginal opening
Delivery of Afterbirth/Placenta may:
- occur 5 to 30 minutes after birth
- have a few contractions and/or need to push
Luckily I felt relieved that none of this was new information to me. But as I read through the “normal” signs of labor and reflected on my previous experiences, I realized one thing: all those number mean NOTHING!
The general rule 5-1-1 (or sometimes 3-1-1) of not going to the hospital until your contractions are 5 minutes apart and last one minute for one hour or longer means I wouldn’t have my last two babies as my contractions were never closer than 7-8 minutes my ENTIRE labors (transition included).
The delivery stage being 20 minutes up to hours also is not anywhere near my reality, Sugarplum was 3 contractions, Doodle was about 10 minutes (even with his giant head).
It all just goes to show that there is no one way in labor, every woman and even every baby is different but the one thing that is almost guaranteed is when it’s time, you’ll know!
