What are the signs of preterm labor at 31 weeks pregnant?
Instead of feeling like you’re going to fall over carrying that front heavy load, you feel like the baby is going to fall out.
I can’t see how that could happen.
When the baby’s head is moving into the birth canal and around the cervix, you can feel like the baby is going to fall out – around the time the baby is going to be pushed out.
And yet I hear stories about how labor took 24 to 48 hours.
Most of those cases aren’t a day or two of crying in pain. It starts off as mild back spasms that start to feel worse or stomach cramps that get worse with time.
The stomach cramps could be undercooked chicken too.
You could have stomach cramps from bad constipation, but that’s solved by drinking more water and taking a stool softener. If you have increasing stomach cramps, it may be labor.
Or appendicitis.
That will be sharp pain in a particular spot, not a general set of muscle cramps around the stomach or back that get worse with time.
A pulled muscle might.
Labor would be clear if you feel it constantly across the entire stomach or back instead of one particular group of muscles, or you feel periodic cramps.
That’s the tell me how far apart the contractions are part indicator.
The stomach cramps may or may not come with diarrhea in the early stages, but it won’t come with hours of super-pooping. That’s how you can distinguish stomach pains from a digestive illness against labor.
Or vomiting.
Rarely will early labor muscle crunching trigger vomiting, but it won’t cause constant vomiting.
I’ve never heard of illness being mistaken for early labor.
If you have a bladder infection, you could have constant pressure in the abdomen along with pain and even pulsing of the bladder due to inflammation.
But I’d have pain when peeing too, if not blood.
If you have bloody vaginal discharge or have that mucus plug come out, you’re probably in labor. If you leak from any other orifice, it probably isn’t labor.
I know that if your water breaks, some women mistake it for peeing on themselves.
Pee has a particular smell, and if there is liquid running down your leg that doesn’t smell like it, your water probably broke.
I know you have to go to the hospital if you have been in labor and your water breaks.
You need medical attention if the water breaks even without contractions, since exposure to the air poses a health risk to the baby.
Now I’m down to any serious pains, muscle cramps and fluid leaks are signs of preterm labor.
At the very least, they are also reasons to get medical attention even if only to say stay off your feet for a few weeks and drink more because you are overdoing it.
At which point, it will be the last time I can get enough rest until the baby can sleep through the night.
That will be months away, hopefully, I mean before the baby arrives.
