Signs Of Labor Approaching
What are some signs of labor approaching?
If this is your first baby, you must be aware of the fact that you may experience false labor symptoms weeks before you are due. It can be quite confusing trying to distinguish what real labor contractions feel like vs fake or Hicks contractions. While the old wives tale says that you will just know when it is time to go the hospital, nothing could be further from the truth. Countless women have been sent home from the hospital when they have gone into false labor and had to wait days or weeks until their babies were actually born.
Pre Labor Symptoms
Many women also mistakenly believe that they will know when it is time to go to the hospital when they feel their water break. However, a majority of women do not have their water break until they are well in to actual labor. Only a small percentage of women will have their water break before they are in labor and in many cases it does not break in most women until they are 9 cm dilated. Since many practitioners recommend that you stay at the hospital once you are past 5 cm dilated, relying on when your water breaks as a signal to go to the hospital, is not a reliable method.
Here are some more reliable symptoms for you to look for that labor may be imminent:
- weight loss – several days to a week before you go into labor, you may loose weight. This is because your body will have discharged some of the fluid that your body was holding onto, that it no longer needs
- lightening – this happens when the baby drops lower into your pelvis. When this happens you will find it is easier to breathe as there is now less pressure on your lungs, but you will now find an increase in pressure on your pelvis, causing you to urinate more often
- backache – you will notice this pain in your lower back as the head of your baby starts to put more pressure on your spine
- bloody show – as your cervix starts to thin out in preparation for delivery, the mucous plug which sealed the cervix, will eventually fall out and leave behind a pink or red vaginal discharge
- diarrhea, vomiting and nausea – as labor draws closer, you may experience one or all of these symptoms.
Of course the most obvious symptom that labor is about to begin is in fact the types of contractions that you are feeling. One of the tell tale signs of a false labor contraction is that it is only felt in your lower abdomen and is not very strong. Also, it does not occur at a regular interval. Generally whenever you get up and walk around or do some type of activity, the pain will go away. However, with a real contraction it will be felt in your lower abdomen and lower back, while being very intense. These contractions will occur at regular intervals and grow stronger and stronger as time goes along. Whenever you do any sort of activity, the pain will remain quite distinct and not go away.
At this point is extremely important to start timing your contractions and whenever they become only five minutes apart, you will want to contact your doctor or midwife and leave for the hospital.
Related posts: