Too many contractions

[Violove]

Hi,

I gave birth 3 weeks ago with my first baby. During labour everything progressed pretty quickly, the contractions seemed to escalate from nowhere and by the time I got to hospital I was 10cm dilated and ready to push.

The midwife said I was having too many contractions and that during a 10 minute period I was having 6 or 7 contractions. It caused the baby to get distressed and the emergency button was pressed, but luckily I was able to push her out without intervention.

It was never explained to me what happened etc, everything on Google is about too many contractions after an induction, but I went into spontaneous labour.

Just wondering if anyone else experienced this and why? I had raspberry leaf tea from 34 weeks, I know there's no proof it works but think it could be what made things progress so fast

I actually drank raspberry leaf tea both pregnancies. With DS1 I started drinking it at 32 weeks (1 cup a day) and upped it to 3 cups a day at 37 weeks. In the end I went 13 days overdue. Had a quick labour, especially for first time labour but baby wasn't distressed.

With DS2, he is only 2 weeks old, I started raspberry leaf tea at 38 weeks, only had 2 cups a day up until he was born at 39 + 6. I was induced mind u but again baby not distressed but I did go from 4cm to 10cm in 1 hour and was only in the labour ward for an hour and 28 minutes before he was born. The strange thing with DS2 was that my contractions had no pattern. I would get 2 one minute apart then the next one was 5 minutes after that. They were all over the place. Not that it made a difference in the end though x

I also have very fast labours with rapid contractions, with my first the emergency button was pressed and the resuscitation table was prepared as the baby was distressed and like you I was able to deliver without any assistance and my daughter was absolutely fine. Some women just have quick, intensive births - the only advice I was given following was to get to hospital as soon as I felt the first contraction with subsequent births.

I think it could just be the way your body goes in to labour.

I am the same. With both my labours I went from no contractions to contracting every minute. The consultant warned me after my first that my body will probably do the same thing and it did. I was dilating for a few weeks (consultant and midwife checks) when I actually started to feel contractions I was around 7cm and almost ready to push.

Would really recommend a birth debrief. It would support you to understand anything you don't understand from your labour.

If you go on medical library called pubmed and search raspberry leaf and pregnancy, it is full of warnings

@Cormoran

I don’t know why are surprised . Raspberry leaf, when used to induce and shorten labor, is associated with cesarean delivery. It precipitated and accelerated your labour and your baby was in distress. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6485309/

I would say you were lucky and hopefully you will stay away from herbal supplements in your next pregnancy.

I am sorry you experienced this but it was your doing. Who recommended it to you?

What a shitty thing to say. It's ok to educate on the risks of raspberry leaf tea but to put that kind of blame on a new mother who has obviously been through a difficult time is abhorrent. You should be ashamed of yourself.

@Violove

Please ignore @Cormoran ridiculous scare-mongering post. I read the article - this is a systematic review, which is a review of all literature on the topic, and summarising the findings. It notes frequently and clearly, that most of the studies reviewed were low-quality, either in the approach or the numbers used. The one relating to raspberry leaf tea only had 34 participants and the claims are slight increase in sections.

So ignore this. Raspberry leaf tea didn't cause your rapidly progressing labour.

As PP said, ask for a debrief to understand better.

Congratulations! 💐