Pre labour : your experiences ?

[MamanFlo]

Hello mums and mums to be

I am now 13 days from my due date and I am experiencing "false labour". Last night it lasted for a few hours and started to ache in my back...but nothing that could really prevent me from sleeping. This morning, I feel that my uterus is still lightly contracting...

I wanted to know about your own experience of pre/early/false labour :
did it last long ?
did it happen often before the actual labour ? how painful did you find it ?
and was there a real difference in pain between pre labour and actual labour ?

thanks for your help and wisdom...

Flo

I had what I'd call pre-labour contractions for exactly 12 hours at exactly 15 minute intervals with ds before they jumped to the proper hurty stage 1 contractions. Because they were so regular I knew that it was all starting even though they didn't hurt too much. Ooh yes, there was a difference in pain level but you probably already guessed that I didn't really even notice any B-H contractions before that time.

This time is different though. I am 36 weeks tomorrow and I've been having random contractions for a few days now. They are bad enough for me to notice and have to breathe through a bit so I am really quite scared that I am not going to make full term! Makes you realise that all pregnancies are different.

Good luck!

I practised my breathing exercises last night, and also noticed that I ad a surge of adrenaline, which is not good ...so in a way, prelabour is frustrating but really useful...

good luck for your pregnancy.

flo

I always had tons of BH ctx, starting from 24ish weeks. All my pregnancies have been 40 weeks.

The only time that I would have said the ctx were painful were the few days before my breech baby was born - I think she probably needed major positioning.

I think the main difference between BH ctx and labour ctx is the regularity of them.

With my third child I had two false alarms. First was on due date (ds1 was 2 wks late and dd 2 days late, so due date was ok) and I had contractions in the evening which got bad enough for me to use my tens. As stage one in my first labour had been very quick, and I was in too much pain to sleep, I went to the hosp to be checked out but had stopped by the time I got there. They kept me in to make sure, but nothing.
Then 3 days later it happened again, exactly the same thing. Then I had a consultant's appt and he said that if it happened a third time they would just induce me, but it actually kicked off for real one week overdue. This time I was woken by it, and I think I was more relaxed because I knew that this time I would have the baby whatever. I had a bath and gave it more time, but even then they said it was early stages and sent me off to wait. Difference this time was that it hadn't stopped by the time I got there.
I know this is no help at all because everyone is different - it was so frustrating!!

With baby 1 in was induced so didn't know what to expect with baby 2. When my contractions started they didnt hurt at all so i just carried on as normal and ignored them for approx 12 hours, then all of a sudden everything started so quick and it was a major rush to get to the hospital as i was in agony!! I just presumed that as they didnt hurt, they werent real!!

I am 39 + 4 now and am getting braxton hicks all the time and to be honest am still clueless! I couldnt tell the difference last time...just hope I can this time as i was too late for my epidural last time...and I wouldnt like that to happen again!!

bellababe I know... everyone has a different experience...It's actually quite surprising to see so many different ways to give birth...

CrazyDi : it's funny because I don't feel the pain myself...I feel it is contracting and I couldn't say it is nice to feel, but I am very far from complaining...I enjoy it even, because I know my body is "rehearsing". Actually my concern would be to get to the clinic too late for the epidural...

Both my two were 2 weeks early but with ds1 it was textbook labour and within 6 hours of getting on/ off contractions i realised they were getting regular and timed them so figured i was in labour .
With my dd i didnt have a clue it was labour as ijust had bad backache in the middle of the night .It woke me up and waters broke .Got to hospital with 5 mins to go -no time for pain relief AT ALL .
sorry thats no help at all - just keep timing the contractions when you have a spell of them .If they get regular to you then phone the maternity ward for advice .I did with my first and they helped me figure it out a little and told me when to get to the hospital .

MF, i had sets of regular BHs, often every 15 mins for several hours, throughout the week leading up to ds's birth - they were more definite than the BHs i'd had earlier in pg, but didn't hurt.

2 days before he was born, i was woken up with low-down contractions that did hurt, in a pinching kind of way. this "pre-labour" or whatever you want to call it carried on for about 36 hours before i got into active labour. in a funny kind of way, that wasn't as painful, tho it was waaay more intense...

if you are still around here to read this, good luck!!

yes...still here ! with this good weather I walked quite a lot.....I hope it helps ! ("impatience is a virtue"

aaaahh yes, that takes me back - me and dp did a long walk every night during the last week, and I ate more pineapple that week than I'd ever eaten before. and lots of raspberry leaf tea. and the expensive acupuncture that made no difference...

don't worry, won't be too long now...

my pre-labour pains went on for 7 days before i had my baby and they were so intense i was sure it was the real thing!!! went to the hospital 4 times just to be sent back home with pain killers! finally waters broke on the 7th night and was then in labour for 2 days!!but worth it in the end had a lovely baby boy!!! hang in there (try a hot bath....it helped me!!)