Painful Braxton hicks every night.

[berrypicking]

I am 38 weeks and 3 days and for the last 4 evenings from around 7pm I have been having very uncomfortable and painful Braxton hicks. Usually every 6 mins ish but tonight it seems to be every 2! baby feels low, I am irritable today, lots of bowel movements too.

Anyone else going through similar? so worried I won't know when I am in early labour. I am also group b strep positive so need to go to hospital as soon as my labour starts or waters go so I am feeling so nervous and anxious at the moment.

Oh I will add this is baby number 2 and I think I do have an irritable uterus anyway. Just want to make sure I get all the antibiotics I need before baby arrives! I am a nervous mess.

I'm 38 weeks on Monday and have been getting strong BH since Wednesday. On Wednesday I was getting them every ten minutes or so. I just so happened to be having a consultation at the time and the consultant said that BH shouldn't really hurt so maybe contact the labour ward? My BH are very uncomfortable and it's difficult to walk through them but i can easily talk through them (couldn't with proper contractions with ds). They aren't painful as such. Also every two minutes is pretty often and regular!

Have you got your bags packed and childcare sorted?

still having them every 2 mins and lasting about a minute. called labour ward and said to take paracetamol and have a bath so doing that now. DH is getting everything ready just in case!

the midwife at triage also said don't need to go in early with group b strep until waters have gone but that's totally different advice to the one my midwife gave me!

Avoid the paracetamol it can make latent stages longer according to recent research. Hope it is the start and baby here shortly!

Every 2 minutes lasting 1 minute sounds like labour to me. Good Luck!

I had this about four hours before my waters started going. Good luck :)

I had this for at least 5 weeks with each pregnancy, apart from my first. I've had 6 children! None led to anything significant and I went to term with each pregnancy. I'm now 33 weeks pregnant with number 7 and just ignoring the braxton Hicks.

went to bed and woke up still pregnant! decided to research it as had enough now and looks like pre labour which can happen a few days prior to proper labour. at least I know now! my body preparing for the real thing! ok will lay off the paracetamol for now! don't want it to delay anything!

Berry, I would also suggest you get checked for a uti. I had this in my last pg and assumed it was my body gearing up for labour. It wasn't. Turned out that the group b strep had colonized my urinary tract and I had a uti which was causing the contractions. One course of antibiotics later and the last fortnight of my pg was so much more comfortable still delivered naturally at 40 wks too

Been tested for a uti and came back fine. Today I am exhausted, grumpy, getting mild pains and the woke up with diarrhoea which has been going on all day. I feel it's close, I really hope my body isn't messing with me too much!

It definitely won't be long- tmi I always got diarrhoea before I started!

Good luck