Lower back pain only - labour? 39 weeks

[Senners]

I'm 39+2 ftm, since yesterday 4pm I've been having intense lower back pain right on the bottom of my spine, it kind of aches all the time but the strong pain/pressure feels like something is crushing my lower spine area for about 45 seconds, every 7, 10 or 20mins or so. At the moment it's around every 7 mins. No real pains in the front, no show, no waters leaking, no other signs till this and I was deffo not expecting just this kind of pain in my lower back! Saw midwife today she felt baby and said doesn't feel back to back.
Just trying to keep timing but wanted to know anyone elses experience of this, if it turned into real labour, if this is real labour and when did you know? Does the pain change or just closer together? I'm so confused! Thanks

Just got the epidural ... Took a long time. I started throwing up a lot and by 6:30 am was only 4cm and I just needed to sleep like you say. I'm so glad I did after throwing up so much I was so weak and there was no rest between contractions, the pain never came to the front at all just constant lower back! Thanks for all the advice, keep forgetting I need to push still !

You've totally got this! You will be pushing to meet your baby just concentrate on that. Even if you're not sleeping just try to close your eyes when you can. And I remember it will be worth it!

Well I finally gave birth at 21:39 28th Sept to a baby girl, after 4.5 gruelling days of slow back labour... She's just perfect. Thanks all for your words of wisdom x

Congratulations @Senners

Mine was all in my back too, they don't tell you that might happen at antenatal classes do they! And glad you got the epidural, the best thing ever isn't it. Hope you're recovering well and enjoying these precious moments with your newborn.

Congratulations! I had slow back labour too and it was horrendously painful so well done you for getting through it! Enjoy this magical time with your baby x

Ahhh congratulations

Congratulations! I was just reading through ready to give my tuppeny’orth but you don’t need it now! Enjoy this magic bit 😊

Congratulations on your precious little girl 😘💜 x

Brilliant I just came on here this morning to see how you're getting on. Congratulations! Hopefully the ward isn't too noisy and you're able to close your eyes for a moment. This week you may feel shaky and sick from exhaustion and that's completely normal. Your family around you needs to make sure that you eat!! This will be the hardest week whilst you try to recover from such a long labour but it does get better. So much better. 😊❤️

Thank you everyone for the words of wisdom and support ! You are right I felt so shakey and sick after birth I could barely hold her ... I feel better this morning but breastfeeding when this exhausted is proving difficult. I said I'd give it a good go but I'm not going to make myself and baby miserable and over exhausted for it. I know it should get better and I'm just feeling this way from the long labour lack of sleep sickness etc but formula seems so much easier right now! Any experiences?

Don't start that thread on here op. Do what you feel comfortable with and don't let anyone make you feel guilty. We live in the first world and firmula is totally safe and the differences are infinitesimal. I bottle fed one after really struggling and shouldn't have struggled as I did or for as long. I breastfed the other. No differences between the dc. If bf works great. If it doesn't bottles are easier.

Congratulations.

Yes I have the same experience. I had real difficulty with breastfeeding. I remember the first night home he was waking up hourly to feed and I was already exhausted from labour I was crying when he woke up like no please don't need feeding again! As it was so painful. I think his latch was so bad he wasn't getting hardly anything so was always hungry. I ended up exclusively pumping for a few weeks. Is this something you have considered? I pumped milk really easily so it made it a lot easier to handle. If milk doesn't pump easily then I don't think it's manageable to do it exclusively. What I would recommend is getting the medela calma teats. That means baby still has to suck to get milk so it's a lot more similar to breastfeeding. Meaning if you feel you need to use formula right now you can whilst hand expressing to keep your milk supply up. Then when you are rested and if you feel like you want to tackle breastfeeding then you stand a better chance of baby accepting the breast. I found exclusively pumping miserable in the end and did move on to formula as I really couldn't get him to latch no matter how many consultants I saw. I was distraught. Cried for days over it and was overwhelmed with guilt. Felt like I needed to justify myself to everyone. But honestly. He's fine. He's never ill. Like 1 cold every 4 months maybe. He is very content. Everyone comments that he is so clever. So if in the end you think you know what I just want to stick with formula. That is COMPLETELY fine. All I would recommend is don't make any final decisions whilst you are feeling so ill and tired. Try what I stated above if possible if you think you may want to try breastfeeding later!

Thank you for the advice, all noted! I will see how it goes but am totally open to formula if it's the right thing for us both 😊

@Senners Combi feeding may be worth looking into for you :)

The fact you're on mumsnet right now means you are coping a lot better than me 🤣🤣🤣. My mum had to come over and stay and put food directly under my nose lol I was not functioning 😂

Had the same problem, decided to buy a special chair. Surprisingly, it helped a bit. activegeardirect.com/top-5-camping-chairs-for-bad-backs/ I bought mine here, see for yourself, maybe it will solve your problem as well.