What do I do when I’m in labour?

For my first child, I had to go to the hospital in the morning so they could give me some hormone tampon to induce labour.
After that, nothing happened for hours.
At 3 pm my waters broke and I panicked! I ran to the toilet and called a midwife. She came into my room with that pitiful look in her eyes. Even though I had had some birth preparation lessons, I somehow thought the baby would be there very soon.

How wrong I was.

It took 15 more hours before I could hold her in my arms.
I want to spare you such a moment and tell you about what you should do once labour has started and when you need to go to the hospital.

If you want to know the signs labour has started, click here.

What do I do when labour has started?

In the beginning, you may experience so many feelings at the same time. Excitement, anticipation, relief and maybe also a little apprehension. Before your focus will be entirely on giving birth and getting through each contraction, you still have some time ahead of you.

For your first child, you might feel like driving to the hospital straight away. But believe me, you want to stay at home as long as possible. Your home environment is much more relaxing than the hospital or birthing centre. Otherwise, chances are you will be sitting in a labour room for hours. Or you will even be asked to go back home.

Who should I call?

If you are not sure if you should go anyway, call your doctor or midwife. They will know what to do and probably advise you to stay at home for now.

The next call should be to your partner so he can finish up things at work and be fully present at your side when you need him.
When I called my boyfriend to tell him that my water broke, I was really calm and told him not to hurry. He came as fast as he could.

I’m not a fan of calling the whole family to let them know that I’m in labour. Because I don’t want to have them sitting in the waiting room while I’m giving birth. But you might want to call your mom or someone to look after your firstborn.
Since they live far away, I called my parents to let them know I was going into labour. Like that they could organize themselves and be there the next morning.

What’s next?

If you haven’t done so yet, now is the time to finish packing your maternity bag and place it by the door. HERE you can find my post with a maternity bag checklist.

And then, relax! You have some hard work ahead of you.

You can have a hot cup of tea, take a nice relaxing bath, put on some comfortable clothes and chill. Maybe watch a movie or read a book, soon you won’t have any more time to do so. But honestly, I’m not sure you will be able to concentrate on those last two things because of the excitement and the space the labour pains take up in your brain.

When should I go to the hospital?

There are a few general rules about when to go to the hospital:

• First-time moms: labour contractions come regularly, last more than 30 seconds and are approximately 5 minutes apart for 1 hour.
• Moms who already have a child: the contractions should only be about 8 minutes apart
• When your water has broken or you have lost fluid from your vagina, you should go within the next 24 hours.
• Your contractions are strong enough that you are no longer comfortable labouring at home

These are all theoretical guidelines. You should really go to the hospital when you feel like you need to go.

For my second child, my contractions were only 3 minutes apart for at least 1 hour but I didn’t feel the need to go to the hospital. I went anyway but once I was being monitored the contractions almost stopped.
Had I only taken a bath at home or lain down for a while, I would have known that the active labour hadn’t started yet.

The best guideline, in my opinion, is that you should go to the hospital when you are so focused and concentrated on the work of birth that you are not able to talk through your contractions due to their intensity.

When you finally have arrived at this point of labour, grab your hospital bag and go! It won’t be long before you can finally hold your baby in your arms.