Signs of Going Into Labor: Nesting

Series Summary

Pregnancy is the carrying of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, inside the uterus of a female human. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets. Human pregnancy is the most studied of all mammalian pregnancies. Obstetrics is the medical field that studies and treats pregnant patients. Childbirth usually occurs about 38 weeks from fertilization, i.e., approximately 40 weeks from the start of the last menstruation. Thus, pregnancy lasts about nine months. Childbirth is the process whereby an infant is born. It is considered by many to be the beginning of a person's life, and age is defined relative to this event in most cultures. A woman is considered to be in labour when she begins experiencing regular uterine contractions, accompanied by changes of her cervix, primarily effacement and dilation. In this free video series, a certified supported birth educated teacher will tell you how to know if you're in labor. You'll learn about losing a mucus plug, timing contractions, effacement, dilation, and how to know if your water is broken. With these tips, you can avoid false alarms and be prepared when the moment arrives!

Video Transcript

"Hi. Today I'm going to be teaching you how to know if you are really in labor or not. A lot of women, this is the fist time they've ever had a baby. So you don't know whether you're in labor or not. And I always hear people worrying about if they're going to know when it's time to go to the hospital or where it's going to happen. Before you actually go into labor, your body is preparing. Weeks, days, hours before you go into labor, your body is doing a lot of stuff. You might feel certain things. You might start to notice that you have a backache more. You might notice that your bowels are loose. You might think that you have the flu. When in reality, you're actually; your body is starting labor. A really, really common thing that happens to women is called nesting. And nesting is an urge. It's a primal instinct. It's not something that can be controlled. It's just makes a woman feel like you need to tie up any loose ends. Different women experience this in different ways. Some women are going to scrub their house, the whole area, with a toothbrush. They're going to get in all the nooks and crannies and go crazy over it. Other women are going to want to have the nursery perfect. They're going to fold baby clothes over and over. They're going to organize things. Every woman, they all experience this very different. Some women who have never cared about organizing things before are all of a sudden going to decide that they need to clean their whole kitchen, they need to stock it full of food, they're going to make all these meals, they're going to put it in the freezer. They're going to finish any phone calls they didn't make, they're going to catch up on all their e-mails, they're going to write any last letters, they're going to pay the bills. They're going to exert a lot of energy. It's a burst of energy that they have and they want to finish up and tie up any loose ends. Another thing that people do with nesting is kind of the opposite of that, is that they want to retreat into their house. It's like how animals build a nest, an actual nest. A bird would build one and want to be in that area waiting to lay their eggs. A woman can do the same type of thing where she just wants to make her home her safe place. She's not going to really want to go out very much. She's going to just stick to home and stick to where she's comfortable. And these signs mean that labor could be weeks away, could be days away, or could be hours away. But these are good signs that your body is getting ready and that things are going to start happening soon."