How to Time Contractions

Video Transcript

"So once you think you are in labor and your contractions are getting closer together and lasting for longer, you want to start timing your contractions. You do not need to time every single contraction and you really do not have to sit there and get a pad of paper and write each one down. You just want to kind of be award of what is happening. I suggest you time in groups of five every so often, just so you can kind of see where things are at. So to time a contraction, obviously the woman is going to tell you when she is having a contraction, because you are not going to know. In early labor she can help time also, but at some point she is not going to be able to help time at all. So let us say like it is twelve thirty and she has a contraction, so she tells you, "I am having a contraction", so you are going to start the timer at twelve thirty. Let us say like at twelve thirty-one she says, "Ok, my contraction is done", so you stop the timer. So that contraction lasted one minute. Let us say at twelve thirty-five she says, " I am having another contraction", again you start the timer, at twelve thirty-six she says, "my contraction is done", so again that contraction lasted one minute long. Now the time between contractions is the time of the first contraction to the time of the second contraction. So if her first contraction started at twelve thirty and her second contraction started at twelve thirty-five, her contractions are five minutes apart. So just show it a little bit easier is her first contraction starts at twelve thirty, she tells you to start timing, her first contraction ends at twelve thirty-one, so this contraction right here is one minute long. Her next contraction starts at twelve thirty-five and her contraction stops at twelve thirty-six, this contraction is also one minute long. Her first contraction started at twelve thirty and her second contraction started at twelve thirty-five, so right now her contractions are five minutes apart. So once you are having contractions that are getting more regular you want to time them at about five at time just to see where the contractions are. So at this point when your contractions are five minutes apart, lasting about a minute, you are in "early first stage labor". That means it is not time to go the hospital yet, you are still probably able to joke through these contractions, be distracted through these contractions, laugh through the contractions. It is not until they get closer together then, you are going to start thinking about going to the hospital. So you still got some time here so you still want to distract yourself and relax as much as you can."