Practise with TENS before labour?

[CoffeeAndOranges]

Got my tens machine on hire the other day, have watched the dvd & am happy with how to use it. It says you can use it after 37 weeks and I have read recently that it's a good idea to practise with it before I go into labour.

Would you/did you? Did it make any difference? Do you practise with it on your back on say on a leg or something? Am 38 weeks now so want to be prepared!

I practised on my back once. Midwife then advised against. Glad i did though, as labour was quick. Good luck.

Thanks. Did she say why she advised against? Obviously don't want to do any harm, but to be honest if I trigger labour now it wouldn't be a bad thing..

I didn't practise before hand, just made sure I knew how to use it, gave me something to mess around with in early labour to keep my mind off it. But I was induced so it was a very slow start to labour, if I'd gone into natural labour I'm not sure I'd have had the same amount of time to play around. Mine came with separate practise pads tho and all the info said it was safe to practice with

The midwife said it was thought to encourage softening of the cervix. Although you might want this, it's not advisable to kick-start things before 40 weeks.
Good luck

I didn't practice because I found the buzzing sensation really unpleasant. It was brilliant in labour though - the sensation on your back competes with the sensation in your front, and it really helps.

Thanks - I will mention it to the midwife when I see her Thursday.

Practised on our arms with DH, in case it was going to be him that was in charge of controls.
He liked how it felt, I found it unpleasant, but it was still a useful physical distraction from contraction pains when the time came. He did do the controls in the end, I went all internal and couldn't manage much except eyes closed & rutting stag noises.

I got my OH to use it before I went into labour which was good because I wasn't really able to use it towards the end.

It was amazing though and I was 9cm when I eventually got to the hospital. Best of luck :)

Haha rutting stag noises, I fear I may have just wet myself

Bellowing was actually a much stronger pain 'relief' than the TENS

(thanks to Juju Sundin, who calls it vocalising- "make your noise bigger than the pain"!)

No. It really bloody hirts when you're not actually in labour.
Fantastic when you are though.
Tbh labour starts so slowly for most people there's hours for fading about with tens and packing bags etc.

Make sure you know exactly where to put the pads and you should be ok

Thanks - I total forgot to ask my midwife. Might just see if DH wants a go and if not, bung it on when in labour. I suspect it won't be a quick labour so as museumum says there should be plenty of time to get the pads on.

I didn't practice with mine but I did read up on how to use it. It was very simple thankfully and I think it did help with the early contractions.

I practiced before hand so my husband would know what to do when the time came. I left it on for 10-15 minutes so I knew what to expect.
I loved how much it helped me. It got me through 4 days of early labour, then right through active labour. It was my main form of pain relief up until 3 hours before I delivered

I had a quick go with a spare set of pads but it feels so different before labour that it wasn't much use to do that. It was helpful that dh we had read the instructions though and i don't get much out of instructions unless I'm actually handling the stuff.

On the day, things kicked off very very slowly, so I got the TENS on extremely early (before I really felt anything at all) which was a very, very good idea. There's some blog somewhere that says 'we tried TENS and it didn't work' by which they mean they put it on at TRANSITION and it didn't cut the mustard. No shit sherlock. I gave the controls to dh at some point which was a bad idea as my ability to say 'oh shit switch over to contraction mode' quickly enough reduced as labour progressed. I used it until I went into the pool at somewhere around ?5cm.

Bellowing and TENS are far from mutually exclusive.

I ended up using my tens in early labour once contractions were every 4 mins or so. I found the sensation quite weird and didn't really like it but kept it on till I got in a big bath at the hospital and stayed in there with gas & air till it was clear that despite my agony and contractions on top of each other I was not progressing and was only 5cm at which point I'd been going 8 hours. Begged for proper pain relief and had epidural followed by emcs 13 hours later when it was clear I wasn't going to dilate further than 9cm.

So in the end Tens was only really of use at home. Don't regret hiring one though. Which reminds me we must return it now DS is 5 days old...