can 'real labour' contractions be painless at first?

[Nancy54]

just wondering as am 35w with twins and am having what i think are braxton hicks, short painless contractions (less than 1 min) that were initially v irregular but just had three in last 45 mins.
Any thoughts?

Hmm, well when I started labour mine felt very similar to the rehearsals.

Keep us updated!

Excuse name, from another thread, but had to say YES! I had my DS in 10 minutes after a couple of hours of unexciting Braxtons. All of 6 real contractions and there he was. Be ready! How exciting!

I had 48 hours of Pre-labour, pretty painless (no more than period pain) before labour proper started. It's just a waiting game usually to see if they become regular, but with you having twins and being a bit early, it's probably worth a quick phone call to your midwife or the assessment unit for advice.
Good luck!

arggggg not ready!!

thanks guys - will keep you updated!

I have twins. I had funny, uncomfortable feelings & was taken into hospital with a 'urinary infection' at 29 weeks my waters had broken but I wouldn't admit it, even to myself. In the hosp they timed my 'funny feelings' and found they were ten minutes apart!

Felt tired and bloody uncomfortable but not really 'in pain'.

Good luck!

I never had braxton hicks, or if I did I never flet them.

with dd1 they monitored me and told me when I was having contractions as I couldn't feel them, I was about 4cm dilated by his time. They did get painful later.

with dd2 I woke as the bed felt wet and found I was having contractions every three minutes, I could feel them but they weren't painful. They got more painful later

Mine were painless for the first hour or so, soon escalated.

well they stopped after an hour and a half. Phew! i dont want them to come for a week or so yet!

I got to 3cm dilated on painless contractions! I was wired up to a monitor drinking a cup of tea and the midwife kept asking me if I was sure I didn't want pain relief as they were measuring quite strong in the monitor!!! Ha!!! Thought I'd end up getting away with it but then I started having 'real' contractions which I could definitely tell the difference between!!!