Are Braxton Hicks suppose to be painful???

Hi, I am 25 weeks pregnant and for the last couple of weeks on and off I've been getting strong pains/cramps in my belly. As this is my third pregnancy I know what real contractions feel like. These are like contractions but, the pain is not as 'strong' as real ones. However they are still painful enough that I have to sit or lay down immediatly. They can last 30 to 60 secs and like 'real' contractions come and go at regular intervals. But, then they go and that is it for a few days till they start again. Baby is still moving frequently and feels like he's positioned quite low possibly head down. Is anyone else experiencing this???

Some people only feel them as tightenings. But me, sometimes they felt almost as bad as labor. I twice had a session of them for 3 or so hours and they were really painful and becoming regular and i was only a week off my due date, so i thought it was the real deal. But no, not a chance. So i think it's different from person to person and also how people handle pain is differnt too. Since it's your third i'd say you could probably feel them more because your body has done it before, so know what it's doing better, if you know what I mean?

Hi Jelliebean

Braxton hicks can be quite painful for some people. One way to distinguish braxton hicks from true labour is :-

B/H are usually irregular lasting anything from a few seconds to a couple of minutes. The time between B/H contractions is also irregular. You may get one every few minutes for a time then you may get one or two after a couple of hours or there may be days inbetween contractions.

True labour. Contractions are usually regular. In early labout these contractions may be as far apart as 30 minutes, but they usually happen every 30 minutes or so. They last from 30 seconds to 90 seconds. As your labour progresses the contractions get closer together and become more painful. So for example instead of your contractions being 30 minutes apart are now 10 minutes apart. They will still be lasting somewhere between 30 and 90 seconds.

Hope this clears things up for you.

Thanks Alan,

I just wasn't sure as I didn't experience this with my last two pgs. Also been getting alot of feedback from ppl saying 'they are not suppose to hurt'.

Mine hurt a bit too Jellybean. They didn't hurt in my 2 previous pregnancies as much. I just see it as the uterus being really well practised for the real thing one day! :)

Don't worry! I too was concerned about preterm labour. But I think its because we've been pregnant before. Let's hope we have nice quick labours hehe.

Cathy
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