Length of labour from first contraction or first REAL contraction??

[Tobily]

This is kind of hard and you'll probably get a different answer from everyone

You're considered (by the hospital) to be in active labour at 4cm dilation with regular contractions. When the hospital records the length of your labour they usually do so from that point.

However - in first time mums especially it can take hours to get to that point. So this is where you start to hear about 30 hour labours etc - in women who have had labours that long from membranes rupturing/first contractions. For those women they count labour starting when their contractions become regular.

That's really the two ways of measuring it I guess - pain is a very subjective thing, and some women (they're rare but there are some) don't experience contractions that they would call painful for their whole labour - but you have to say they're in labour at some point