Phoning hospital during labour?

[Nope2024]

Feel unbelievably thick for asking this, but just left my 38-week midwife appointment and have realised that nobody has actually told me what to do admin-wise if I think I'm in labour. I feel very prepared for the pain...less prepared on the phoning side.

Do I:

1. call the community midwife to let her know?

2. call the hospital myself to say I think I'm in labour even though they won't be seeing me for a few hours?

3. Or only call the hospital when my contractions are 60 secs long and every 5 mins? So just get on with things at home until this point, then ring?

Everyone I've asked says they went in panicking with all the bags expecting to give birth, and were sent home because they were barely dilated.

So is hospital really likely to want to get me in to check how dilated I am if contractions aren't very frequent?

(I'm low risk and midwife-led, if that makes a difference.)

You would call maternity triage at your hospital and they would tell you whether to come in or not.

Thank you!

My waters went before going into labour so I phoned maternity triage then. I went into be checked and they booked me in for an induction 24h later (10pm) due to infection risk. They said they would phone me that evening to see how I was getting on and for me to call them once contractions were 3 in 10 minutes and 1 minute duration.

What I'd probably do is give maternity triage a call when you think you are in labour and they will either get you in or give you an indicator about when it would be time to call them back.

If you are struggling at home don't be afraid to call back and be firmer about being checked. I went in when they were 3 in 10 minutes, 1 minute long and was 2cm. I'd only been home just over an hour and I was struggling to cope. I had to really stress I was struggling and wanted to come back in. I'm glad I did as I had progressed quickly and was 10cm and was ready to start pushing about 15 minutes after getting to the hospital!

My waters went during the night, then I used a contraction counting app on my phone to self monitor. The one I used actually advises you when it's time to go to the hospital based off your contractions. I rang and told them how far apart they were and they said to come straight down. I was 4.5 cm dilated x

I called hospital to say I was in labour so that they knew I was on the cards for the day, and then called them with an update saying we were heading in.

You just ring the labour ward when you think it's time or if you have concerns. They will then give you a proper grilling on the phone and make you feel like you are wasting their time....even if you are very much in active labour.

We called when I was having regular contractions and were told to call back once they were at a certain frequency... In the end my waters went and they asked me to come in to be checked as that starts countdown to an induction. Basically if you're not sure, call and see what they say.

Our hopsital say to call the Labour ward when contractions are 5 minutes apart.