Welcome to the Kick, your expert led podcast, helping you explore and learn everything about getting pregnancy, birth, and becoming a parent.

On the podcast and our online pregnancy program grow My Baby, we share my experience of helping more than four thousand babies to be born.

And our experience of running a women's health clinic and parenting for boys.

We're here to help everyone to feel empowered in pregnancy and birth with real life, practical information.

Well, welcome everyone.

It's Bridget today and we have a quick kick that is going to be all about Braxton Hicks.

And we made this quick kick because quite often, particularly towards the end of your pregnancy, you get to the point we get a little bit confused about whether you're going into labor or whether in fact it's just a Braxton Hicks.

And I totally get that feeling.

You are wondering if every little movement, every change in your belly and uterus is the start of labor, because at the end of a pregnancy, we might be getting a little tired of being pregnant and we're looking for any sign.

The other reason you may have picked this up is you've just started with having Braxton Hicks and the first couple of times it is a little bit scary, so we want to do you mystify that for you.

When I was listening to this episode and actually writing this quick kick intro, I just thought, well, my god, this brings up so much for me.

Also because I'm recording today on the eve of our second son moving out of home and thinking about Braxton Hicks has made me remember the start of his labor.

I remember early labor for him took a very very long time, days in fact, and I was still confused about what was a contraction and what was Braxton Hicks.

For people who have been listening to us for a while would know that my first birth was an emergency cesarian.

My second son was an a tempted v back which ended up in a cesarean.

And these both were with my first husband and then doctor Pat and I had to plan cesareans for our next two boys.

So v back is a vaginal birth after cesarean.

So the sun moving out this week was my attempt at a vback.

And for this pregnancy, I had an independent midwife and I was berthing at a public hospital.

The pregnancy was great.

I always say I do pregnancy well, I just have problems with the hatching.

The guidelines nineteen years ago.

My son's now nineteen was that I had to go into spontaneous labor to attempt a v back.

Now this is still the same for some, if not all, providers at an hospital, So please check with your provider if you're setting up for a feback.

Like my first son, I was not going into spontaneous labor.

I was having weekly acupuncture, I was walking a lot.

I was having sex as uncomfortable as that is at term.

And I got to forty weeks and then forty one weeks, and I knew that I had a date where my providers would advise a cesarean, And honestly, that weighed on me so heavily.

At forty one weeks, in five days, I started early labor on the evening of January the first, It was Happy New Year, and it ended up fizzling out about eight hours after.

And I have been having a lot of Braxton Hicks the whole last few months of the pregnancy.

And because I have the knowledge that we're going to talk about in the podcast now, I would say that I had a lot of Braxton Hicks leading up to what I deemed as early labor.

I did start contracting again the night of January second, and the plan was for me to labor at home with my independent midwife, but she rang me and said that she'd been up all night the night before, and because I was trying for a vback, she felt it unsafe for her to be with me at my home, so she wanted me to go to the hospital and she would meet me there.

The problem with that plan at the time was that when you got into hospital, this puts you onto a clock, and I can't really remember the amount of time that I had, but I think it was either eight or twelve hours to birth my baby before I would have to have the cesarean.

I got into hospital, and because I've been in this spurious labor for two days, I hadn't slept, my husband hadn't slept, and unfortunately, neither had our independent midwife.

And it's such a memory burned into my brain that at one point I went to the shower with my independent midwife so we could use the shower head on the lower part of my back.

I had a lot of back pain during that labor, and when we were coming back the midwife said to me she was so tired she was about to fall over.

And I walked into the room and my then husband was asleep on the bed.

So at that stage, Jan said to me, look, I feel unsafe.

I'm going to call in another midwife and I'm going to go home.

I felt a bit abandoned.

But the replacement midwife, who I hadn't met, was just lovely, and the contractions I was having were pretty good.

But Ronan, with his very big head, wasn't making any progress into my pelvis.

He was sitting really high, and by the time my hours were looking like they were running out, the obstration was called in to do a ve Now, this ve I can remember that being incredibly painful because I think by then everything, my whole vagina, cervix, everything was just so inflamed.

I was really shocked at how painful that particular vee was.

And then I hear the disappointing news I had only got to about five centimeters and her advice, I'm going to say advice, It was just like, this is what's happening.

Next was to have a cesarean.

So I've talked about Dempsey's my first boys, lights and sirens cesarean.

This was much much calmer, but still I felt really disappointed with myself, with my then husband and with my independent midwife, with the system that had a clock attached, and with the terminology that everyone kept using of a failed feedback.

I hate saying failed v back.

I took that on board, and for a very long time, I definitely did feel like I had failed some test.

I had set myself to have a vaginal birth.

Now, luckily I have doctor Pat and I have debriefed this with him many many times, and I realized that I just wasn't the right candidate for a vback.

The reasons I had an emergency cesarian for my first was still there.

Both pregnancies were nearly forty two weeks long, which gave my babies even more time to grow bigger.

For my frame, my contractions in both labors weren't effective enough to dilate my cervix, and all my boys were born with had succumberferences in the ninety seventh center, so they didn't get into my pelvisy in the first place.

We talk about all of this in our vback podcast, which I'll link in the show notes, and if you're listening to me.

I don't want anyone to feel disheartened if they're trying for a vback this time around.

My only regret is that I didn't have the expert knowledge back then to make some very different decisions about my first birth.

I think longtime listeners would hear Pat say again and again, it's your first birth that sort of sets you up for subsequent berths.

So in that first berth, I refused induction, I refuse sintocinin to get my contractions going.

And then, honestly, I blame the obstetric system so much for my first berth that I refused an obstrican involvement at all in my second pregnancy and birth.

Look, the irony is not lost on me that I ended up marrying an obstrician, nor that I required an obstetrician so much to birth all four of my babies.

My understanding now is that if back then, if I had have been more open minded, I would have at least listened to a different opinion to help me make an informed decision about my birth with Ronan.

And guess what this is the good part.

He is nineteen, a strapping, healthy, intelligent, and incredibly kind human who honestly and for all the Brooklyn nine nine fans, I know we quite them a bit.

I'm going to quoite Haimy.

He doesn't give a hoot about how he was born.

So I know this quick kick is about Braxton Hicks.

But I hope something in my story today has helped someone who like me, wrap their identity so closely with how they birth.

For you, I want to remind everyone that you are powerful beyond measure for growing a whole human and that is enough.

Now let's get on with this quick kick and demystify Braxton Hicks.

Okay, what is is Braxton Hicks?

Well, these are those contractions of the uterus where a sort of a movement of force moves through the uterus that people will say feels like a tightening or a contraction.

It can be painful, but it's not indicating labor.

Yeah, and sometimes it's called false labor, isn't it.

Yep?

It can be.

It can be.

It's commonly mistaken for the real thing, and it can be very painful, and you can you can be forgiven for thinking that it's the real thing, especially if it's towards the end of the pregnancy.

And I've heard the term that it's your uterus in training.

Yeah, I don't know if anyone knows if that's true or not.

The uterus is a muscle, and I guess like any other muscle in the body, it benefits from being active and the other smooth muscles in the body, like the your heart, it's just going all the time.

Yeah, so I guess it's constantly getting exercise, if you know what I mean.

But what we expect from the uterus is that it will sit there for your whole life, but work like an absolute champion in labor.

I guess it's a nice idea to think that the Bracks and Hicks contractions might be just going out for the afternoon stretching its legs.

Yeah right, But actually never thought about the uterus absolutely doing not much like the mild cramping or the cramping A lot of cramping once a month for your period.

Yeah, but I don't think that's necessarily associated with a contraction, an actual contraction of those muscle fibers.

Yeah.

I think the period hurts for other reasons, and when the blood comes there, it is inflammatory mediators that get released to cider coins and prostaglandins and things that actually hurt.

But in terms of the uterus doing its job for those muscle fibers to contract in a way that expels the baby, we don't.

It's not doing anything for most of the time, and then we expect it to work like an absolute trojan in labor.

So that's I guess that's where the idea came from that brax and hicks might be exercise.

It's a bit like how I play my golf.

You know, once a year year I expect to.

Be brilliant, expecting fabulous results.

Yeah, it's exactly like that.

Good all right, Well you said that it's painful, but it can also be sort of like a mild cramping.

How else do other people express it to you?

How the Braxton hicks feel.

I guess the most common way people describe it is tightenings but that moves through the uterus, usually top to bottom, so not just in all over tightening, but like a ring of tightness that moves rhythmically through the uterus.

And when I had my Braxon hicks, I really felt at this just at the front of the timmy.

Really Yeah, And you can often you can see it if you're looking.

Often the uters will will move in a way that you can see.

And the clincher with the bracks and hicks is that the whole thing, the whole episode, not each contraction, but the whole episode of contractions should come and go within forty five minutes.

And it's not allowed to be associated with other features.

Okay, so if your waters break or you have vaginal bleeding or that's that's labor.

Yeah, so it has to have no other features.

Do we know why they're happening?

Like we we've already talked that it's sort of possibly uterus in training, But are there any other reasons why they might be happening?

What do you mean things that provoke them?

Yeah?

Oh yeah, well you can people say they can provoke them themselves.

So you can sometimes provoke them just by touching the uterus.

Oh yeah, I've had that.

Ye or exercise, sex, someone else, touching your belly, bladder being full, anything that sort of triggers that.

And some people's uterus got like a hair trigger and it'll just go off with the slightest provocation but in a very harmless way.

And then other people think that they might be associated when they've been exercising too much, standing up for too long, dehydrated, full bladder.

When I had Braxton Hicks.

This is where you hope that your kids don't listen.

It was definitely after sex, Like the Braxton Hicks after sex was really quite concerning.

Like for me, yeah, yeah, and that's right.

And some people say, look that the that the tightenings of the uterus that they get after sex in Britancy takes all the fun out.

It's not worth it.

Yeah, but most people experience that acknowledge that it's harmless and soldier on.

Yeah.

And at the start, like, you know, thank god I had you, but like I had you to ask, oh my god, if I just injured the baby.

Thank god you had me.

That's quite right.

But you know, for other people, I could imagine like that is the concern.

You think, oh my god, I've done something to injure the baby.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, And it's a weird feeling if someone someone did touch my tummy and I had a Braxton Hicks immediately, Like that's a weird feeling.

It's a weird feeling.

Yeah.

Well, thank you everyone for joining us on this quick kick.

I hope that we've helped to mystify the difference between perhaps of Braxton Hicks and early labor contractions.

And I hope that perhaps with my story at the start, that some people are thinking well.

Actually expert led information helps me to make really informed decisions.

So I applaud you for taking the time to learn about your pregnancy, to learn about your labor, to learn about being a parent.

If you have enjoyed this information, please share it with a friend who might be going through pregnancy or thinking about becoming pregnant.

It really helps to spread our message and it helps them to also have the ability to make informed decisions.

All right, until next week, everybody, thank you so much for joining us.

We'll see you then.

Hey, even though doctor Pat is well a doctor and we get lots of other doctors and other experts on our podcast, I just need to remind you that this podcast is for inform purposes only.

We share lots of medical insights and experience, but everything we talk about is general in nature and may not apply to your specific situation.

Please always consult with your own healthcare provider for your individual medical advice.

When you grow your baby,