Length of labour

[MrsGiraffe12]

Even though I've been booked in for ELCS tomorrow I'm curious about natural labour as it's something I've never done, plus if I go into labour before tomorrow I'm "allowed" to attempt it naturally (very unlikely now I know)

The midwives at my trust say go to hospital when your contractions are 5 mins apart.

I'm just curious, generally how long does it take from the start of contractions to get to 5 mins apart? And once they reach that stage does it generally take to get to the pushing stage?

I know it differs from woman to woman but just in your experience x

It varies an enormous amount IME. With my first labour it took about 48 hours and with my second it took about an hour!

It takes as long as a piece of string

Mine took 36 hours to get to 4cm. For 24 of those hours I was having 3 contractions within 10 mins. I did go to the hospital, they sent me home again because I was only 2cm dilated...

Mine started 3 minutes apart both times. The first time, my waters had broken so I went into hospital. I was told that it would settle down as my waters had broken first. It didn't.

I was told to come in at 9am the second time (35wks with twins, 5am) so I said no and went in. Had them at 7.30am.

Every person is different

I was having contractions every 15 mins for 24 hours, about another 12 hours until they got to every 3/4 mins, went to hospital at that point and was 1cm .
Took another 6 ish hours to get to waters breaking and 6 more after that for birth.

Five minutes apart took about 15 hours. "Three contractions in ten minutes" is what I was told by my trust, and that took more like 23 hours.

I was told they had to be consistently 5 mins apart so like a wally because they were sometimes 3 mins and then 7 mins and then 5 mins i put off going in as I didn't want to get sent home. It took about 12 hours to get to this point - before that it was about every 10-15 mins sometimes stretching to half an hour. But my waters broke after a big contraction and they went mental and I got to hospital 9cm dilated! Baby born very quickly after that! Anyway they don't have to be exactly 5 mins apart which is what i was waiting for and then it was nearly too late!

Mine started around 5 minutes apart both times. First labour was 52 hours and second was 1 hour 54 minutes!

It varies enormously. I was at 5 mins apart for about 36 hours with DD1. I was told not to go in. Whole thing was about 56 hours.

By no.3 it was all too intense to really know (I don't time contractions ) but whole thing done and dusted in 4.5 hours.

Everyone is different but for me it was quick. First labour was 6 hours start to finish and second 3.5 hours.