early stages of labour any tips for getting it going.

[duke]

My friend had a show and the start of contractions on sunday night since then she's been contracting every 20 mins at night then it slow to a dull ache in the day then back to contractions at night. The same thing happenend to me after a 5 day labour it ended in c-section. Any advice I can give her?

I found my cc went faster the more relaxed I was but I think that slows most people down. They say to go for a long walk maybe she could try that.

I feel so sorry for her as I spent days walking bouncing and crawling trying to get things going only to be told 5 days later I would never be able to give birth naturally. I am probally the worst person for her to talk to!

I can see things the other way around my sil first birth ended in emcs and I had no intervention and she kept asking me for advice on how to vbac and I felt she could of talked to someone better.

But your friends birth may surprise you as I was told after 22 hours I was only 2 cm and baby was op and as my waters had broken 22 hours ago they would give me a section come morning.

However I called mw back and hour and a half later and she was so shocked she didn't reply for a few seconds as I was 9/12 cm and my baby was born 30 mins later.

I am sorry you had such a bad time but labor can often take a very surprising turn and hopefully this will be the case for your friend.

she might be in the latent stage which can last a while and the best thing to do is to rest as much as possible and save her energy for established labour which could still be many hours

resting, sleeping, eating and drinking lightly, weeing/pooing, taking a bath , using a birth ball , watching a funny film.....

her body will let her know when it is time to pay attention and she needs to use this pre labour time to store up her energy and take it easy

raspberry leaf tea and sugary drinks can help , nipple stimulation and sex/orgasm can be helpful too

but really, resting and nurturing herself before it all kicks off is what i would advise

she can have some paracetomal if she is uncomfortable and call the labour ward for advice if necessary

Thanks guys. I'm going to text her the advice. That the other thing I know what it's like to be bombarded with 'any news' texts so trying to keep a low profile.