Subject: the "start" of labour isn't clearly defined, either.
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Posted on: 2009-05-14 06:13:00 UTC
Some women could go for quite a few hours with a contraction every so ofen and still not even have to lie down. I think - think, mind - that it's not even called "labour" until well after the contractions have started.
I know a midwife personally, so if no one else can answer, I'll ask her later.
How far apart are contractions at the start of labor? I need to know for the PPC.
I asked my sister yesterday. She says, marvellously helpfully, that she really can't remember, but there's not really an average either - it can vary a lot.
As for how they feel, she likened it to a sort of dull burning pain in the lower back. My fairy godson's mother said pretty much the same.
They are not like buses, for a start. Every twenty seconds at the start of labour? Er, no. So far as I know you're not meant to head to the hospital until the contractions are close enough together, which suggests they're initially far apart.
From experience: when I was having a three hour natter on the phone to my sister to distract her last time she was giving birth, she wasn't that far advanced then, but it was probably every ten or fifteen minutes or so (I'd have to check). She'll be calling me tomorrow to wish me happy birthday, so I'll try to remember to ask her then. In the meantime, google might help, but you're likely to get conflicting information - try your google-fu on "how far apart should my contractions be before I head to hospital?" and use that as a baseline.
Some women could go for quite a few hours with a contraction every so ofen and still not even have to lie down. I think - think, mind - that it's not even called "labour" until well after the contractions have started.
I know a midwife personally, so if no one else can answer, I'll ask her later.
Generally you'll have what they call a "show" quite a few hours before it all gets going - this is the plug of mucous from your cervix coming out. When that goes, you know the baby's going to follow sooner or later.
I thought it was called "breaking water" or something. Why does that happen anyway?
What happens is that the baby is floating inside a sac of what's called amniotic fluid, which rather resembles water in looks, inside the womb. When the sac breaks, which it will do at some point during labour, the fluid escapes. That's the waters breaking. The show, as has already been explained, is something totally different.
What's the show for? Why is there a plug of mucus around the cervix? I just figured that coming loose was what let the amniotic fluid out. If not, what's it doing there?
As far as I'm aware, the plug is there to prevent anything getting into the womb during the pregnancy and possibly damaging the sac of amniotic fluid or harming the baby.
Nothing gets in, nothing gets out. Stops you getting gunky bacteria up there as well, I'd imagine. Although that doesn't stop the baby from picking up any gunk from the vagina on the way out, which is why, as we have just discovered, home births with Evil Pregnancy Thrush of Doom are not allowed.
Evil Pregnancy Thrush of Doom?
Considering all my knowledge is coming from my mother's last pregnancy thirteen years ago, I've recalled a lot. o.o
But this discussion's been very useful; I like making sure I've got my facts right, and it's all good for future reference.
I was my mother's last (even if she does occasionally insist I'm the eldest) so no knowledge from there. But my sister dropped her first three years ago, and her second's due in about three weeks. And this second's not being so easy, so I'm learning plenty from it. For example: you also can't have a home birth if your iron levels are ridiculously low. (And getting lower since your iron tablet intake was tripled - that baby's going to be made entirely of metal when it comes out, I think.)
much as I wish I wasn't. There's a thirteen year gap between me and my half-brother and a fifteen year gap between me and my half-sister too, not that I'm ever likely to see them again.
"But my sister dropped her first three years ago"
She dropped it? :P
"that baby's going to be made entirely of metal when it comes out, I think"
Hey, X-Men is set 'in the not too distant future.' Maybe the baby will grow up to be Colussus? :D
Idiom, dear. As in "to drop a sprog", meaning to give birth.
I got that, I just found the image funny.
It's different for every woman, and on top of that, it's different for every pregnancy - first-time mothers will generally have a different time of it than those who are going through it for the second or third time, as their bodies have been changed. It's complicated. Can you give a more detailed outline of what you need to know?
For some women (rare cases - first timers) the time between breaking water and finish can be as long as three to four days, sometimes longer. But that is extream. For first time labour, the time is rarely less than six hours.
The second child, labour can be as short as one hour.
Extream short time (I am not sure if this was the woman`s fourth or fifth child), she brock water while shopping, drove to the hospital and the child was already halfway birthed by the time she got to the emergency ward.
There are absolutly no averages.
One thing to factor in is body shape. There was a reason why men wanted their women to have wide hips (child bearing hips). It was so that the woman in question would have an easier time having children and the less possibility of her death. Now with C-sections, that is largely taken out. Women with narrow hips can have a 10 to 13 pound baby, which in earlier times would have almost guranteed her death.
These are things you have to think about with your character.
Hope this helps. You can say almost anything, as long as it isn`t too outlandish.
Leto
"Women with narrow hips can have a 10 to 13 pound baby, which in earlier times would have almost guranteed her death."
What about the baby?
If not, it would have suffocated. It all depends.
won't the baby just get stuck?
to a point. If you ever saw a baby right after birth, they actually have a pointed head, also the clavacles are on the softer side so that it wont break. But squish too much and you will kill the baby.
L
"If you ever saw a baby right after birth"
I haven't. Which works against me a lot whenever I have a birth scene.
If you're ever left unattended somewhere with Sky for a few hours, investigate. There are channels devoted entirely to babies and childbirth. Some of it gets pretty graphic. And gross.
that if there was a chance that the baby would live, but no chance of the mother surviving, then it would occasionally be cut out of her in a sort of primitive post-mortem caesarean, depending on how important the child was to the father.
Children died too often in those times as it was; any chance to save a baby's life would be taken if it looked as though the mother wouldn't survive, or had already died.
There's evidence of it having happened before - it even gets lampshaded in Macbeth when the title character gets a prophecy that he can only be defeated by a man "not of woman born". Turns out the guy referred to was born by a primitive form of Caesarean.
Right now there is a tendancy for bigger and bigger babies, more are having to be done by c-section. If the trend continues (and I am at no means saying that women or children should die in child birth) the norm is going to be section rather than natural birth. Natural birth is going to start to become uncommon.
Still child birth is still one of the scariest things in life. What time period is this fic set in? What kind of technology is available? For that matter, what class and or ethnicity are the mother and father? Is it the first child? These are all factors that can be important to the outcome. Ethnicity because if say the mother is Oriental and the father is Scandinavian, that could be a big baby for a small woman if the steriotypes hold true.
My two yen.
L
As in, when the pregnancy lingers on and the baby is growing too big for a safe delivery, they artificially begin contractions and the child is born before any problems can begin. I know for a fact that most babies born at six or seven months have a very high survival rate, so don't believe any of that rubbish about how it has to be nine months or else.
Though I would hate to be a father and have my baby have to stay at the hospital for a couple of months until it is fully developed/big enough to take home.
L
I doubt the baby would have to stay in hospital for long at all. I've been annoying my mother, who was a midwife for long enough, and she says babies born at seven or eight months are no different than full-term ones; there wouldn't necessarily be any need to keep them in hospital, unless the doctors are either paranoid or greedy for money.
There must be some difference, or else why would the usual gestation period be nine months instead of seven?
So far as I'm aware premature babies often have trouble with their lungs not being adequately developed. If it's known the baby will be coming out early, they can give the mother something (steroids I suspect) to stimulate lung development, but if it's a surprise appearance at just seven months, there could be trouble in that department.
Like Cassie says, money's not an issue in British fandoms. It's the baby's health that's important. And they don't like sending 'em home when they're really tiny (although if it was only a week or so premature that wouldn't be a worry either).
"Usual" gestation period isn't that usual, is it? Not if babies are naturally born 'early' or 'late' so often.
I just asked for more details; according to her, a 7-month baby has a good chance of surviving even without oxygen.
And yes, sorry about the money comment. I'd just been listening to rants from Certain People and it put me in a sour mood.
I was under the impression the reason they're so often early or late is because of the dating of conception. Dating goes by the date of your last period. Though they can revise it once you've had your scans, not all babies are exactly the same size, so there's still some room for error. Hence an awful lot of babies are a few days early or a few days late.
And then of course some babies are just comfy, and have no plans to shift. Amazingly, I wasn't one of them. Made it for it ever since though.
I was born simultaneously early and late. I was late for the first date and early for the second. :P
there wouldn't necessarily be any need to keep them in hospital, unless the doctors are either paranoid or greedy for money.
If you're writing for a British fandom set in modern day, the latter reason isn't applicable either, unless the new mother is in a private hospital instead of an NHS one.