I am not a very nice person these days. Just ask my poor husband. I mean, I try to be, but when you feel as though your uterus has declared war on the rest of your body, it’s kinda tough to be Little Miss Sunshine.
There is a term that, unless you have taken natural birth classes (Lamaze doesn’t really count, and we will discuss why another day) or birthed with a midwife, you are probably unfamiliar with. It’s called prodromal labor. Unfortunately, most OB’s and L&D nurses are quick to mislabel this “false labor” or, even worse “failure to progress”. It is neither. First, anyone who has experienced it or seen it will be quick to tell you that there is nothing false about it! Second, progress of some kind is indeed happening, but it just may not be the measurable progress on the timeline that women have somehow been pigeon-holed into as ‘normal’. In reality, ‘normal’ has been narrowed to such a small window that almost no one fits it, which is why we have so many interventions happening. I can show you ten different women with ten entirely different labors and all of them would qualify as normal. We have just forgotten what normal looks like because we no longer give it the opportunity to happen.
Prodromal labor is a funny thing. For some women, this phase of labor may last a day or two. For some particularly lucky women, like me, it may last for weeks.
Basically, your uterus is working hard, and you know it, but the docs may not see the cut-and-dried quantitative results they want to see. During prodromal labor, the types, intensity and regularity of the contractions are widely variable. Some women have what feel like intense Braxton-Hicks contractions with no real pattern for a day or two and then begin “active labor”. Some women have very time-able, regular, labor contractions that will reach regular intervals and then fade apart and die down. This may happen several times over a few days or a few weeks. And, of course, there are many different patterns. Some women will have regular contractions and Braxton-Hicks intermittently between the regular contractions. Some will have one episode lasting several hours and then go into active labor a few days later. Some women will have stop and go episodes for a week or two – or longer. The variations are endless. There are several reasons for this type of labor to happen.
- Your baby may not be in great position and your body may be helping baby get into a more favorable position for birth.
- Your cervix may be posterior and the contractions may be helping to ease your cervix into a better position.
- You may be effacing or “thinning out” which is just as critical as dilation.
- You may actually be slowly dilating. I’ve heard of women doing this up to as much as six centimeters!
As you can imagine, this particular type of labor can be very, very draining. It can drain you physically, emotionally, and mentally. Physically, this is the equivalent of lifting a weight every few minutes for hours, days or weeks. After a while, you would get pretty darn tired! Emotionally, you may find yourself getting discouraged, wondering if you will ever really go into labor, and wondering if you will have the stamina to make it through the ‘real thing’. You might feel helpless, frustrated, overwhelmed, angry, impatient, and just generally upset. This is the hardest part for many women. Finally, you may struggle mentally. You may begin over-analyzing every contraction for it’s duration, intensity and frequency. You may begin giving yourself ultimatums, or even doing your best to get labor going by any means necessary. You may start searching the internet for a magical answer to when you will go into labor… I mean, I’ve never done that, but somebody might… ok, I totally have. But the point here is that prodromal labor is very real and very hard to deal with. This is one of the reasons that women often give in to induction, pain relief and even cesareans – because they are just plain exhausted.
Here at the Frazzy house, prodromal labor has kind of been our nemesis of late. My husband has already come home once thinking that this was the real thing and that was two weeks ago! And I’m not even a first time mom! My Bradley teacher has a saying “Labor is a retrospective diagnosis. Once you are holding the baby, you can say ‘yep, that was labor!’” Oh, how true that is!
So, as far as my personal situation, here’s where we are: I am apparently really good at this prodromal labor thing. I have been having the stop and go labor for several weeks now. At one point I was having contractions every 3-4 minutes, over a minute long, for over and hour. Then…it stopped. Just stopped. No slowing down and gradually spacing out. *sigh* Since then I have reached five minutes apart and over a minute long several times, but they keep backing off. Now, I know at one point Baby Bug was decidedly posterior, so I am certain that these episodes have helped her to get into the position she’s in now. I’m sure other things are happening, but since my GBS (Group B Strep) screen came back positive, I am not doing any more exams until I hit active labor. Even then, they will be minimal to reduce the risk of transmission to the baby. (I have another post ready about GBS that I will put up later this week.) So at this point, I am just trusting that my body is doing what it is supposed to be doing and that it’s all for the best. Someone may need to remind me of that if you see a tweet that says something like “I think I might jump off of the roof if I have one more episode of this!” or ”I’m going to choke the next person who asks me if I’ve had the baby!”. Don’t take anything I say personally, I’m just a little on edge. I’ve outlined the reason for that in pretty good detail here. However, I apologize in advance for any ‘tude I throw out there! I promise, it will be over by Thanksgiving at the latest!
What a wonderful explanation of prodromal labor! In retrospect, I can see that I had a pattern of prodromal labor with every baby! I never even had a midwife call it prodromal labor, though. I just thought it was false labor and I didn’t really know why my body kept doing it!
Sorry you get to experience this. It’s no fun to be sure, but your muscles ‘are’ warming up, and getting ready for the big event. Great blog post! can I repost it on my blog?
Thanks guys! Feel free to repost!
Aw, Frazz, you’re doing great! Prodromal labor is rough stuff, and all you can do is all you can do, ya know? It’s for sure that your body knows what needs to be done, God has a plan, and your job is just to try and listen with as much grace as you can muster. We’re all here to see you through it!
Great descriptions of prodromal labor! It’s sometimes hard to do justice to what exactly it can be, since it can defy almost all textbook “rules” for labor, but you did a great job summing up the different ways it can go.
I’m linking to this via my prodromal birth blog!
Thanks, Sarah! Feel free to link!
Unquestionably believe that which you stated. Your favorite reason appeared to be on the internet the easiest thing to be aware of. I say to you, I definitely get annoyed while people think about worries that they plainly do not know about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top and defined out the whole thing without having side-effects , people can take a signal. Will likely be back to get more. Thanks
Thank you so much for posting this! I have experience prodromal labor with my last two pregnancies and am going through it again this time, but never knew there was a term for it. I ended up letting myself get induced the last time (though I was only 35 weeks) because the doctor was sure that being dilated to a 5 if I went home and let things run their course I would not make it back to the hospital in time. Now I wonder how long I would have been able to carry him if I had let my body do it’s thing. I’m currently 33 weeks and 3 days and at last check was dilated to 4, but contractions are still irregular and fairly mild. This has given me hope that the big event may not be as soon as my doctors have had me fearing. Although I am terribly uncomfortable and so tired, I want to keep this babe cooking as long as possible.
Thank you for such an accurate description of what I am feeling! I am so emotionally exhausted and I feel like I am going crazy! This is my 3rd birth so you would THINK I would know what my body is doing, but alas, each birth has been totally different! Your description has been spot on for what I am going through and so informative and helpful. Thanks so much!
THANK YOU!!!!! I feel SO much better knowing I’m not alone! I am experiencing this now (well, did for 34 hrs and then it stopped), with my 2nd birth. I am 40 weeks, so I know the end is near…..but, I was beginning to feel like my body is playing some kind of nasty joke on me!
Thank you! This is exactly what I have been feeling, increasing in intensity over the past two weeks, and I thought I was losing it. Even my “midwife” kind of laughed it off as me just overly anticipating. Finally my random google searches have taught me about prodromal labor… did I mention this is my third? Ridiculous that I have not learned about this yet.
I am so pleased to hear that this post has helped all of you! As a nurse, I can tell you that this is one of those things that the medical establishment rarely acknowledges. In fact, when a doula friend of mine said to a doctor that her client had been experiencing prodromal labor, the doc said “Oh, just making up terms now, huh?” Good thing, I wasn’t there, because my sassy self would have said “Well if you can make up things like “failure to progress” and “past due” to feed your pocket, why not?” But I that’s why I’m not a doula. I would be a voo-doo doll in every doctor’s office in town.
I think I am going to repost this on Twitter and such. It is by far the most popular post I have ever written and it does my heart good to see it helping others!
Thank you for your post! I’m 99.99% sure I’m now in prodromal labor and this post is the first thing I’ve read that makes any sense as to how i feel and what I’m going through now. Since last Thursday, at my weekly doctor’s visit, I was 4-5cm dilated and 100% effaced! The nurse practitioner basically swore I would have my baby by Sunday. Well.. obviously it’s 6 days later (and I even danced for 2 hours at a wedding on Saturday) and baby is still hanging out inside. I am more emotionally drained than anything at all and am just wondering when is this ever going to happen and what signs can I really trust at this point, since I’ve felt everything you’ve described (pressure, contractions on and off, BH contractions too, etc etc etc!). What I find frustrating too is that none of our childbirth classes, doctors, nurses or even friends (natural birth or not) have said anything about labor that could be weeks! This is the first time I’ve heard the term prodromal labor! Anyways… thanks again
You should spread this word more!
THANK YOU for posting this. I had classic prodromal (with a posterior baby) labor with my first daughter. Once we found out she as posterior (didn’t find out until birth) I just KNEW that that had caused my prodromal (or “chronic prodromal” as my midwife called it) labor. I started having contractions at 35 weeks and dilated to 3cms, 50% effaced. At 37 weeks I was 4 cms, at 39 I was 5 cms and I went in to the hospital at 6cms, 80% effaced STILL NOT IN ACTIVE LABOR. They ended up breaking my water and I had my daughter (intervention free) that night.
Fast forward 2 1/2 years. I’m 36 weeks pregnant with my second daughter, who is currently presenting anterior. As I type this I’m having my nightly (6-10 pm) contractions. Sometimes they’re every 2-3 minutes, sometimes longer in between. I went to the hospital (2 hour drive mind you) last night when I had 3+ hours of having contractions every 4 minutes. I had a VERY crappy nurse who told me that I didn’t have prodromal labor, but just an irritated uterus. I googled as soon as I got home, and um, she was wrong. LOL But it managed to make me very cry-y and even more frustrated. I googled prodromal labor and came across your post. Thank you. I cried as I read it because it was SO nice to not feel alone. Everyone I know has “normal” labors.
To add insult to injury, I am 2 hours from my hospital. My husband is, at times, 4-5 hours. I’m petrified of making it to 5-7cms again and not be in active labor, and need to stay with my sister (who is 10 minutes away) for extended periods of time. I’m petrified of my hubby not making it to the hospital, or us not making it. I’m also tired. Physically and emotionally. Thank you again for writing this! I’m linking to it in my own blog post about prodromal labor.