- Known as false labor, Braxton-Hicks contractions may be the first contractions you feel when you are pregnant.
- They can happen at any time starting in the 20th week
- You can sometimes use your hand to feel your stomach muscles tighten and let go, get hard, then soft again
- This is not like feeling the baby move, which you may notice a little before 20 weeks
- For some women, these contractions are painless
- Other women feel a short but sharp burst of pain
- Think of these as warm-up exercises for your womb
Braxton-Hicks contractions versus real labor
It's easy to think Braxton-Hicks contractions are real labor . Here are the four main differences:
- Timing
- Braxton-Hicks contractions tend not to have a pattern, but real labor contractions do
- Keep track of your contractions for an hour to help you decide if it's real labor
- Measure from the start of one contraction to the start of the next
- If the contractions are every five to 10 minutes, it's time to call your doctor
- Length of Braxton-Hicks contractions:
- Can be short or long
- May vary in strength
- Might feel like your belly is tightening into a hard ball
- You might barely notice the next one
- Real labor contractions
- Do not vary in strength
- Tend to last at least 30 seconds at first
- Then get longer each time
- Control
- Braxton-Hicks contractions often stop or become less painful if you move from sitting to standing or from standing to lying down
- If it's real labor, the contractions will carry on no matter what you do
- Location
- Painful contractions only at the front of your belly most often mean false labor
- True labor pain most often starts in the back and moves toward the front
- If you aren't sure whether you are going through false or true labor, call your doctor
Anticipating false alarms
- It's not always easy to decide if your pain is from real labor or not
- The key is not to be embarrassed: get your contractions checked out
- It's much better to be safe than sorry, and it doesn't take much for your doctor to check and tell you what's really going on
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