When you talk about how long your labour lasted, do you count it from when your waters broke / when your first contractions started, or do you only count “active labour” from being fully dilated?

Following as I’ve also been wanting to know!

My maternity notes say my labour was 7 hours. Based on when I gave birth, the hospital must be counting it from when my water broke

I did from first contraction… i have no idea when my waters went lol

I’ve been counting from when I lost my mucous plug (9.5 hours), contractions started pretty much immediately afterwards. I also note from what time I became convinced it was real and started timing the contractions (6.75 hours). My cervix didn’t dilate until the last minute. I was measured at 3cm when I arrived at the hospital and then went straight from that into transition and baby was out with 18 minutes of pushing. According to my discharge notes first stage labour was 5 minutes! But my story definitely lasted longer than that.

Very first contraction. Active labour idk about, first baby the one VE was when I was 1cm and I had her about 7 hours later. The next two births I didn’t have an VEs so no one knew when I was fully dilated. It’s pointless looking because I seem to go from meh to BABY really fast and my contractions don’t follow the textbook. Waters went about 12 hours before my first was born and then the next two was more like 12 mins. There’s no real record of the first birth as it was an accidental unattended home birth and the next two I’m not sure what they recorded it as.

My first contraction was tuesday around 5am, and then gave birth thursday 3pm😂 58 hours😳

From when my waters broke. Contractions then started within 2 minutes and she was born 3.5 hours later.

@Rachael mine are like that! Thankfully mostly not particularly painful for the most part

I count active labour, so what’s written on my labour notes from the hospital. So mine for this pregnancy was 1st stage 30 mins, 2nd stage 8 mins, and with my 1st born 1st stage was 6hr14 2nd stage 57 mins. I don’t count from first contraction because I was having irregular contractions for days and my waters broke the day before this baby was born and nothing happened 😂

@Katy this was exactly like mine. Waters broke at 3am. Baby was here by 6:07am! No signs at all before that.

First contractions. But hospital I think is from active labor onwards

I go from my first contractions which for me is 10 hours but in my notes they have it as 2 hours 45 minutes. 1st stage 2 hours 23 minutes, second stage 12 minute's and 3rd stage 10 minutes. My waters didn't break until half an hour before I delivered her x

I say latent labour for X time, active for X time. I think most people go with just active labour. It's all labour to me!

I counted from my first contraction because they started off every 5 to 10 mins, and within the hour were 2-3 minutes. So, it was 14 hours total. X