What checks during labour

[Mmolly2013]

When I'm in labour and I first get to hospital what normally happens, will they bring to side room first before labour ward.

What will they check and will they take my pain into consideration first or more worried about checks.

Also if they tell you to come in when contractions are 5 minutes apart how many cms have most of you ladies been at that stage.

Thanks in advance.

They will check how many CM dilated you are and if you are in active labour without you to labour/delivery

When I got to the hospital and had these checks I got gas and air pretty quickly and went straight to the birthing pool

My Cx were coming pretty quickly - was 4 CM and had baby 2 hours later

My contractions were 3 minutes apart and I was not quite 1cm dilated
I wasn't too impressed when she told me that!
They took my info, checked me over and took me to the labour ward pretty quickly. I was given pain relief pretty quickly too.

I got to the hospital and was taken to a room in the midwife led unit straightaway and the midwife did an internal examination and I was 9cm dilated. I then got straight into the birthing pool and was given has and air. I had DS about 1 hour later.

DH and I didn't really time the contractions I just decided I wanted to go to hospital and have a midwife check me and get some pain relief!

My contractions never really got regular, some were 3 mins apart and some were 20 mins apart or more! I went when I was having to really breathe hard through them and felt like I wanted to be checked. I was taken to a free room on labour ward and checked straight away - mw warned me not to be upset if I was only 1-2 as it was so irregular but I was 4-5cm so went to "my" room. It was still about 14 more hours before DS was born (after they'd broken my waters, sen meconium and put me on the drip to ramp up contractions).

I didn't have a great experience as despite having contractions every 2 to 3 minutes and being in active labour they left me in the waiting room for ages. When I did finally get seen to they told me to go home! I was in active labour at this point. Fortunately I started vomiting and they have to keep you in if that happens.

Midwife one then assessed me at 9cm. Midwife 2 re-assessed me at 4cm, and told me to fight the urge to push. I wasted a lot of energy doing this, until midwife 1 came back in, said I was 10cm, and wondered why I wasn't pushing.

Not telling you this to put you off, just to show that midwives are not god. If you disagree with what they are saying don't be passive like I was. Stick up for yourself.

I was told to ring when my contractions were 3-4 minutes apart and lasting for over a minute. When I got to the labour ward I was asked to wait in the waiting room. When they realised how close together my contractions were (about a minute apart by the time we got to hospital) and that i couldn't stop throwing up they wheeled me down to a spare bed in the consultant lead area (MLU was full) to check how dilated I was. I was 6cm at 6.50am and I had my boy at 8.32am. Because of how busy it was and they had two emergencies to deal with, it took quite some time to get any pain relief. I arrived at hospital at 6.15am and gas and air arrived about 7.30. I didn't get pethidine until almost 8am which was way too late!

My contractions also never got regular so i only headed in once my waters had gone.
Called MLU and they told me to come in as they could tell i was in labour but told me if i was less than 4cm i'd be sent home (after waters going contractions came thick and fast)
When i arrived the MLU they took one look and took me straight into a birth room telling me they didnt think i'd be going home. They examined me with gas and air and i was already 6cm. They filled the pool fast and i got straight in (thank god as dd arrived 50 mins later!)