Early Labour

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For many months before labour, you may experience healthy uterine toning contractions, sometimes called Braxton Hicks contractions. These contractions are irregular, are often felt across the whole abdomen, have no pattern, cause little pain and no obvious changes to your cervix.

In the days or weeks before labour, Braxton Hicks contractions may become rhythmic, relatively close together, and even painful, possibly making you think you're in labour.

Early labour contractions are focused lower in your pelvis, over your pubic bone, and are helping your body prepare for labour by easing the baby into a lower position as well as softening and thinning the cervix. It is common to confuse early labour, sometimes called false labour, latent labour or prelabour, with true labour. Early labour contractions can be uncomfortable, are irregular in length, are usually longer than 5 minutes apart from the beginning of one to the beginning of the next and, no matter how long they go on for, the cervix will typically not dilate more than 2-3 centimetres.

If you're between 37 and 42 weeks and are having early labour contractions, your health care provider or hospital will help you assess whether you might be going into labour and may coach you to rest, sleep, bathe and eat healthy foods while waiting for labour to begin.

If you are less pregnant than 37 weeks, and you are having regular contractions, you should contact your health care provider promptly because you could be going into preterm labour and this needs to be assessed in hospital right away.

Visit the OMama page on the signs of labour and for more information on Braxton Hicks contractions, how to make yourself comfortable during early labour, see the links below.