The first 0-3 cm will give you the pain like having a period. This stage of labour can take hours, days or weeks. It can start and stop at any time.
Don't worry, every cm you've had is a cm extra. The cervix only opens, it doesn't close when the period pains have stopped.
At 4 cm you went past the point of no return. You're in labour!!! Also called active labour. Although you don't need to do anything at the moment. Just try to relax and if the pain get's to bad you can get pain relief.
You'll get contractions. First not that painful and that close on each other. You can easily sleep during this part of labour without noticing anything that's happening in your body.
Between 4 and 10 cm the contractions will become more painful and they will follow each other quicker and quicker with each cm.
At some point you'll notice that you're in labour and that it's time to go to the hospital.
It does happen that someone doesn't know they're in labour until the baby is born. But this happens so rarely. Don't worry about it.
At 10 cm you're fully dilated and ready for the next part of labour. This is when you'll feel the need to push your baby out.
You might get that feeling before the 10cm. But you got to wait till you're fully dilated. Your midwife will let you know when you can start to push.
When the baby is born you enter in the last phase of labour. This is when the placenta will come out.
You might feel a bit of pain, but nothing as bad as what you had during childbirth.
During the first 0-3 cm. Have a walk, do things you like. But also try to relax as much as possible.
How childbirth starts is something they don't exactly know. What they do know is that in the body there're some changes in hormone levels.
When you reached the 4 cm your body goes into active labour. Before that the nr 1 hormone that will stop/delay the delivery is:
adrenaline
The more you worry, the more adrenaline your body will make and the longer it'll take before you get to the point of no return. (4cm)
It's like having a balance or seesaw in your body. On one side you've the hormones that are pro labour and the other side you've got the anti-labour hormones.
More and more pro labour hormones are being made in your body as time moves on.
So it some point no matter what you do the baby will come.
If there're not enough pro labour hormones you can do what you want. But the baby won't be born.
In between you do have some influence in when the baby is going to be born. Try to let those pro labour hormones to do their work as much as you can.
Sylvia