Labour the second time round....is it really half the time?

[HarleyK]

Just wondering from mums with two or more babies, do labour times really get cut by half each time, or is that just a myth? Having had a relatively short 9 hours with my first makes me slightly scared of not making it to the hospital in time with this one.....oh dear.

Wow, Tunnock!

First labour 5hrs, second labour 8hrs. Felt more in control second time round which is maybe why it was slower - both very short though so can't complain at all!

1st 5 hours
2nd 1 hour!

1st 34 hrs from waters breaking to baby
2nd 3hrs from waters breaking to baby

Quite seriously, it's worth your DH/DP reading up on what to do in the event of an unplanned home birth. I ended up having a caesarean first time round (having got to only 5cm), but DS2 was practically born in the bath, as things progressed much more quickly than I had realised... Like Abigailsma I was very happy to have such an easy VBAC

1st 29 hours ending in ventouse delivery
2nd 2 hours!

Not read the whole thread, so sorry if it's not useful.

DS1: 5 hours first stage, pushed for an hour, then 2 hours delay when he got stuck, waiting for an obstetrician, then forceps delivery. 8 hours in total from waters breaking/first contraction.

DS2: 4 hours from first twinge to natural delivery (got to hospital with 45 mins to spare.)

DS3: 20 mins from waking up at 1.30 am when my waters broke to natural, (if unexpected) unattended home birth at 1.50 am. (All was well, if rather messy!)

1st labour - 31 hours from first twinge to delivery by EMCS (3cm to fully dilated in 12 hours)

2nd labour - 5 hours from first twinge to delivery VBAC (3cm to fully dilated in 30 mins, 19 mins of pushing)

Ok now I am terrified after reading about some of the super-short second labours! I was 12 hours with ds - hubby works 50 min drive away and is a surgeon so getting in touch with him may involve some hysterical shouting at theatre staff and insisting he put the scalpel down, and nearest relatives are 4 hours drive away. After working in obstetrics I couldn't have a home birth - I've seen a skewed proportion of complex labours and I would be too scared of something going wrong - so looks like I will have to fling ds at the nearest obliging neighbour and hope I don't give birth in a taxi to the hospital!

1st labour 36 hours
2nd, from kicking DH awake to delivery, 3.5 hours [him: 'but we can't ring the babysitter at 4 a.m.' Me: 'you can unless you want to be holding DS1 in one arm and cutting the cord with the other!']
3rd (but induced so cheating really): long enough to walk down the ward to the cafe, think 'oh shit' and scuttle back again. Just.

1st - 22 hours
2nd - 12 hours

DS (induced) : 10 hours from first contraction to delivery.
DD : less than 2 hours (and about 30mn from the first painful contraction!)
I'm due next week and I'm preparing myself to giving birth in the car!

Looking back I think 2nd labour is a state of mind..having been through it before i think the body just accepts whats about to happen and 'expidites' it. (sorry been in management training all day - buzzword bingo all day long)

1st - 36hrs - back to back labour nightmare
2nd - 20 mins from first contraction to both twins being born. Twins were 9mins apart so only 11 mins from beginning to twin one being born! Luckily was in hospital for different reason!

1st - 24 hours from first contraction; 3 hours pushing, but fairly straightforward
2nd - 10.5 hours from first contraction; 3 pushes. Only unbearable for the last 20 mins or so.

First labour 7 hours

Second labour 3 hours- only just made it to hospital

First labour 4 hours (though possibly a bit longer - I was 2 weeks early and convinced I just had indigestion!); second labour 10 mins. Yes, seriously - from first twinge to baby in arms. I had planned to have a home birth anyway, but it would have been at home whatever as I would never have even made it to the car!!
In retrospect I highly recommend 10 mins (didn't have time to hurt) but I did go into shock afterwards as I didn't know you could have a baby that fast!

i was going to ask this aswell , and everyone says because it was 14yrs ago had my 1st it will be like my 1st again .does anyone know if this is true ?? thanks :) good luck with birth harley k , hope it s as pain free as possible for you !

First dd about 36 hours.. I stopped counting. Second dd, about 2 hours and a bit. I know which I preferred!

DD1: 16h from first contraction, 10h from 3cm dilated. 2.5h pushing, ended up with ventouse delivery.

DD2: 13h from first contraction, 7h from 3cm dilated. 1h pushing, no intervention.

1st: 1 hour 42 minutes, 2 minutes of pushing

2nd: 1 hour 47 minutes, 2 pushes. I was lucky :-)

1st labour -17 hours
2nd labour -4 hours
3rd labour-36 hours(crap midwives didn't notice he was facing wrong way with cord round his neck)
4th labour ( I know, I know, what a martyr to the cause I really am) 12 hours.

So stop at 2!

1st labour: 4 1/2 hours
2nd labour: 47 minutes!

These are the midwife's recordings of the time I was in active labour for - it felt considerably longer each time. Second labour was much more manageable than the first, no tearing and was out the same day. Good luck!

I posted earlier about my quick second labour. The funny thing was my DH had this iPhone labour app that he was quite excited to use - the idea was to tap the screen every time there was a contraction and it would time them and generate lovely graphs and show how they were getting closer etc. He only got to tap it about 6 times before they just accelerated and we had to dash off to the hospital... .

Would have been fine for DS1, indeed helped pass the time (didn't have the app yet at the point) but not a chance for DS2!