"I was in labour for 3 days"...I keep on hearing people say this, is it true?

[embojet]

Hello, I was having contracts every 10 mins for about 4/5 days before my waters broke. during that time, they sped up then, got slow again... I was absolutely knackered, so I can say yes... You can be in labour for that long...
10 miles isnt that far, so Im sure if you start having contractions close together you could call him, he would probably make it in time!

Snap! My contractions would be regular all day for 4 days, and stop completely at night. OIn the 4th night, I woke up at midnight needing to push and turned up at hospitla fuly dilated, still having contractions only every 10 mins.

 

[amotherslove]

i laboured for 63 hours in hospital.

most of it was "early labour" and i was only at 2cm.. but i had bad vomiting and gallbladder attacks and contractions were off and on.. when they were on they sucked. once they broke my water finally i dilated FAST. from 2-10 in an hour and out she came. but those 3 days SUCKED.

 

[imthatgirl]

I was having contractions irregularly (varied between 15 minutes apart down to right on top of each other) for over 70 hours before my baby was born. They never came came regularly the whole time, right up through pushing. I didn't have any complications though.

 

[OurLilFlu]

As a nurse in postpartum and L&D... Labour is defined as REGULAR and PRODUCTIVE (cervix changes) contractions, which usually councides with being around 4 cm and by that time the contractions are about 5 mins apart and lasting 1 min...yes you may contract at regular or irregular intervals for a long time but if you are not dilating or effacing its not true labour... You will have plenty of contractions spanning vastly different timelines but remain at 1 or 2 cm... So no you generally are not in true active labour for days and days, usually around 24 hours is on the long side of things...

 

[Dream.dream]

I had a 39 hour labour and I count from when the contractions were 2-3 minutes apart and lasting 30 seconds at least

I had contractions 8-10 minutes apart for days before I actualy went into labour and if I counted that I would have been in labour for a week

 

[SpringerS]

As a nurse in postpartum and L&D... Labour is defined as REGULAR and PRODUCTIVE (cervix changes) contractions, which usually councides with being around 4 cm and by that time the contractions are about 5 mins apart and lasting 1 min...yes you may contract at regular or irregular intervals for a long time but if you are not dilating or effacing its not true labour... You will have plenty of contractions spanning vastly different timelines but remain at 1 or 2 cm... So no you generally are not in true active labour for days and days, usually around 24 hours is on the long side of things...

That's only accurate for standard, non-complicated labour. For example, back to back labour tends to entail regular, close together, extremely painful, contractions while effacing and dilation limp along very, very slowly. It took me 65 hours of contractions, 45-60 seconds long, coming at least every 5 minutes to efface. By the time my waters broke my contractions were 1 minute on, 1 minute off and I had dilated 1cm. The midwives and doctors agreed to give me an epidural at that point and although I couldn't feel them the monitors showed that my contractions were coming faster and stronger over the next few hours but I still wasn't dilating and oxytocin was suggested. Even after I fully dilated on that, my son just still wasn't in the right position and a little over 80 hours after my contractions started coming every 5 minutes, my son was born via c-section. I was most certainly in labour though.

 

[Louise88]

I was in labour for 16 hours waters went at 7:30pm contractions started around 8:30-9pm at 6am I was 6cm and had my daughter at 12:32pm after pushing for around 20 minutes, my labour was very easy

 

[hokiemom]

Someone mentioned that labor is considered being 4+ cm dilated, but I actually started counting labor way before that as I didn't dilate right away. I woke up on a Sat. with contractions about 7 minutes apart. Then they went to about 3 and stayed that way for the next 1 1/2 days. It was only 11 hours before I gave birth that I even reached 4 cm, but I surely count all those hours of painful contractions as labor. They were consistently 3 minutes apart and lasting 45-60 seconds

 

[Noo]

No - You're only in labour once you've reached 4cm dilated, the cervix is fully effaced and you're contracting 3-4 times in 10 minutes. People do seem to think a long latent phase is labour though - But it isn't... It's getting ready for labour, but that doesn't make it any less annoying/painful/tortuously slow.

I started contracting at 4am but wasn't 3-4cm until 12.35pm and delivered at 13.45... Technically I had a 70 minute active labour but obviously was contracting longer than that.

 

[CatAndCo]

I was having contractions for 62 hours, but from 4cm to birth it was seven hours.