Truth about second labour

[peaceloveandbiscuits]

Is there any truth in the anecdote about your second labour being about half the time of your first?

How quick were your first and second labours?

My first was six hours and I'm a bit apprehensive about the possibility of a three hour labour this time!

1st: 17.5hrs from first pain, but < 3 hours serious labour (was having a nap, woke up, < 3hrs had a baby)
2nd: < 4hrs from first ache; < 3 hours from first actual pain. Pushing stage was crazy fast - he basically surfed out in one go.

OP have you thought about a planned homebirth? It might be a better way of ensuring that you get medical care with this birth, rather than risking giving birth on the side of the road. Or at least making sure you're in safe, familiar surroundings if you do labour v fast.
Both mine were planned homebirths - was bloody lucky with DC2; we are quite a way from hospital and he would almost definitely have been born on the side of the road (I woke DH up an hour before I gave birth). As it was, the second midwife barely got her coat off before his head was out. Worth thinking about maybe.

Four I have considered it, but given the assistance DS needed, and some other issues I have, I would feel safer in hospital.

I'm hoping to labour in the pool again (delivered on the bed though), but there is only one on the labour ward so it's a matter of pure luck. I would love to deliver in the water too :)

Nope, mine was longer. My longest labour in fact! Second one was 4 hours, first was 2.5 hours, third was 3 hours.
Had super short pushing stage with all of them - 20 mins first time and basically 2 contractions next two times. None needed any help so I'm not sure about the idea of the baby being shocked by a short labour, haven't heard of that before.
Planned home birth would be worth investigating! I had my second and third at home, partly because of the speed of labours and they were wonderful.

Ahh if only!

DS1: waters broke, mild contractions started just afterwards and he was born 24 hours later.

DS2: waters didn't break. I was in slow back labour for almost three days with fairly frequent and bloody painful contractions throughout.

Oops. I should add that the actual pushing stage was a lot quicker with DS2.

I'm not sure wether this was because with DS1 I had an epidural and went to sleep for an hour before my midwife woke me up and told me to start pushing. I couldn't feel my contractions so she had to tell me when to start and stop pushing and I pushed for about an hour. Whereas with DS2 my epidural didn't work, the midwife was shit and wasn't listening to me when I had been telling her things had really ramped up and so I didn't start pushing until he crowned. she had been telling me I was nowhere near close and told me not to push when I told her needed to. I pushed anyway and then that's when she bothered to actually come over to me and saw his head. He was born about a minute later after 2 maybe 3 pushes

1st, 27 hours back to back.
2nd, 10 hours (but they tried to slow it down as he was premature).
3rd, 3hrs but I had around 5 days of stop start latent labour in the run up.
4th, 9 days of constant latent labour as he was back to back too. Dr decided I'd suffered enough & despite really good contractions nothing was happening dilation wise so put me on the drip & he was out in about 50 minutes.

Purple it wasn't the speed of labour so much as being shot out in one push!

First = 24 hours. Second = 16 hours. Both back-to-back. Labour progressed almost identically for both (slowed down to nothing when I got into the birthing pool). But my first involved forceps whereas the fear of needing forceps again resulted in me managing to push my daughter out by myself!

DC1 - 21 hours from first contraction, pushing took ages & ended up needing forceps

DC2 - 12 hours from first contraction, pushing 20 minutes

DC3 - 5 hours from first contraction, pushing less than 5 minutes

So each labour was roughly half the previous one.

1st - 22 hours
2nd - 14 hours

so pretty much half I guess.

First was spontaneous before the birth date, 12 hours taken from first contractions, about 9-10 hours from water breaking, but really long pushing stage.

Second was 2 weeks overdue, induced (pessary), but labour was 4 hours taken from water breaking, only 1 hour from first contractions Nearly gave birth in the lift Inductions don't happen in the labour ward, and from about 3cm to 10cm was about 20-30 minutes.

Both very different labours and MWs were gearing up for a quick / early spontaneous birth following my first (not that it was mega fast), but wasn't exactly like that.

Dd1 8 hours
Ds 25 hours
Dd2 1 hour 40 mins

Dd1 - 37 hours with all kinds of interventions, she was OP and almost 10lb, ended in a ventouse. 4 days early.

Ds - 10 hours from waters breaking, simple delivery. 10 days early, 9lb3 - luckily he was the right way round.

dd2 - 12 hours from induction pessary at 36+6, all happened in the last hour, though! A tiny 7lb15!!

DS1 was 21 hours from first twinge and was a perfect, textbook water birth.
DS2 was about 14 hours, but he turned during labour, and I ended up with 12 hours of agonising back labour. Was like torture the entire time. He popped out after only 2 pushes though, unlike DS1 who nearly had forceps etc.
My recovery was much quicker with DS2, so I have nearly forgiven him

1st labour was 14 hours from first twinge to baby. 5cm to fully dilated 4 hours then about 1.5 hours pushing.

2nd labour (2 days ago!) was 8 hours from first twinge. 5cm to fully dilated was half an hour and only 8 minutes pushing stage!

Felt a bit shellshocked after the second labour but on reflection, it was a much better experience. My body just seemed to remember what it should be doing this time. All i would say is that I went from contractions every six minutes to every two minutes with no warning so only just made it to the hospital in time! If you want a hospital/centre birth then be prepared to go in a little earlier than you would have with your first as contractions for me went from ouch to omg I feel like I need to push with no warning at all!

1st 6.5 hours

2nd 1 hour 38 mins.

And I had 19 years between the two so your body never seems to quite reset itself as people say.

Oh dear god divadee

1st labour 10 hours, 2nd labour 3 hours (just nice IMO)

First-9hrs
2nd(9 years later)12 hours(back to back)
3rd (induction)24 hours and emergency c sect
4th was elective section

Each baby is different as each labour can be

17 hours and 11 hours. They also had nothing in common with each other (which was brilliant because the first one was horrendous).... labours not children. The children are both lovely!

First was 30 hours second was 61 hours for that reason I'm never having a third. I'm crap at labour lol

I don't want a home birth for reasons stated upthread.