I am in latent labour and fed up now, been going on since Friday, when will active labour start?

Question

On Friday I began having contractions which were irregular and then came down to every 6 mins, they were lasting nearly a minute and although painful I could manage them. This is my third baby in 4 years and I am 40 weeks. I am having a home birth so my midwife came out and examined me and said that I was 3cm dilated and my cervix was soft stretchy and effacing. She said I may carry on dilating or that I may have already been so from having my other kids. With Imogen my daughter I had slow labour which began on the wed and I had her in 2 hrs on the sun morning.

Since Fri I have had the same contractions daily sometimes lasting up to 5 hours and then suddenly stopping, I have also been steadily losing my mucus plug and it seems every time I wipe there is more. I have been keeping active and walking most days although this kick starts the pains again and the pressure down there from her head becomes unbearable. Has anyone else experienced this or have any idea how long this will go on for. My actual date is Sat my last child was born a day early so I cant face another two nearly three weeks of this! I am frustrated as I know that if I just dilate another cm then I will get to the active labour stage and hopefully things will continue rather than come to yet another halt.

Answer 1

I was like this when I was having my baby - I got sooooo fed up I had a full day out - out for breakfast, visiting various relations, met up with my friends for lunch (contractions every 5 mins then lasting for 1 min) went to my parents where then I was having contractions every 2 mins so I went to hospital at 7cm dilated. Just tried to forget as much as I could.

Unfortunately I got stuck at 9cm for AGES but at least the contractions kicked in again!

Answer 2

www.babycentre.com (NOT the .co.uk site) is very good.  There is always someone in one of the hundreds of forums going through what you are doing.

You know the other things you can do to encourage labour.

Walk up and down stairs, pineapples and raspberry tea have enzymes which encourage labour, also spicy food and o****m.

So do all of that and you should get a result.

Answer 3

I'm sorry to say that I think this calls for emercency action - send hubby or lovely friend to buy the biggest black forest gateaux they can find and rent a 3 foot high stack of movies and give the other kids to them. It's the only course of action left!

  I was in labour with my first for 6 days so I know just how miserable it is. Give up on the walking if it hurts, just curl up and enjoy the last chance to do nothing, It's very unlikely to go on much longer, and if you go into a herbalist they can give you some things to get labour going properly, black cohosh i seem to remember, but I may be wrong. Hope this helps, I found red dwarf box sets induce labour!

Answer 4

When I had my baby girl in January my due date was a thursday, I hit latent labor on friday and active labor monday afternoon. For your sake, I hope it is soon! Sounds like it will be. Mucous plugs aren't always indications of active labor, but some women deliver within just a few hours of losing theirs. I would try to take it easy for a couple more days if you can. Walk if you want to, drink tea, have s*x - if you even feel like it - but remember, your baby will be here very shortly without those things so if you just want to sit on the couch and eat ice cream for awhile, do that too! Good luck and congratulations!