When to go to the maternity
No need to time your contractions or watch an app. Four signs will tell you when labour has really started, and when it's time to go.
You're no longer asking yourself whether this is it. If you're still wondering, it's not it yet. Once you are in active labour, you know it: there's no doubt anymore.
If you still want to eat, you're not in active labour yet. Once labour is really under way, food is the last thing on your mind.
If you can still talk through a contraction, it's not it yet. In active labour, when a contraction comes, you can't do anything else: you focus on it and breathe through it.
Even at 2am, you'll be bouncing on your ball, dancing, moving around. Staying in bed is out of the question.
When all four signs are there, labour has really started. Take your bag, your partner, and go to the maternity calmly. Until then, trust your body, trust yourself: you can wait calmly at home.
The four signs are about what you feel, not numbers. Staring at a stopwatch keeps your head busy, and labour is not something you control with your head.
Birth is run by a very old, automatic part of the brain, the one that also runs your breathing and your heartbeat. Every time the thinking brain takes over, it gets in the way. As Caroline puts it: the more you think, the less you labour.
Picture the start of labour as an old train starting up. At first, contractions are small, short and far apart: this is the latent phase. The train can speed up, slow down, even stop, then start again.
In active labour, it's a high-speed train: it goes fast and usually doesn't stop anymore.
Arrive too early and everything is different: not the same smell, not the same people, not the same light. You start to worry, and the train slows down. Back home, where you feel cosy, labour picks up again. Going back and forth like this can go on for days.
And this slow start is a good thing: it gives your body time to make endorphins, your own natural painkillers, so you're ready for the stronger contractions.
Free app · iOS & Android
In Hoama, tick the signs as they come, on the day, even without a connection. The app also has breathing, mantras, guided audio stories and a guide for the birth partner. Free, no account, no ads.
