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Preterm Labor: Anything and Everything / Re: Is it a contraction or just my baby moving around?
« on: May 23, 2009 at 07:22 PM »
I too was very confused in my first pregnancy when it came to what a contraction was.
I worked up until my eighth month and for the majority of my pregnancy I was getting what I know now are contractions. The reason I didn't ever suspect that the "tightening" feeling I was getting was a contraction was that it wasn't necessarily painful. When I think of a contraction I picture women in their hospital rooms screaming bloody murder over the pain. I worked right through them although some of them were uncomfortable enough to make me sit down every once in a while.
One night the "tightening" came with cramping and I went to the hospital being a nervous first timer
. It turns out that tightening I was experiencing were indeed contractions. And they were what the nurses' considered moderate contractions. I was given terbutaline to calm them and released with a lower dose prescription to keep them under control.
I was told that if you have dull pains in your lower back and or abdomen along with the tightening it's definitely a contraction. Even just the tightening alone is a contraction - you can tell the difference between the two.
Hope this helps!
I worked up until my eighth month and for the majority of my pregnancy I was getting what I know now are contractions. The reason I didn't ever suspect that the "tightening" feeling I was getting was a contraction was that it wasn't necessarily painful. When I think of a contraction I picture women in their hospital rooms screaming bloody murder over the pain. I worked right through them although some of them were uncomfortable enough to make me sit down every once in a while.
One night the "tightening" came with cramping and I went to the hospital being a nervous first timer

I was told that if you have dull pains in your lower back and or abdomen along with the tightening it's definitely a contraction. Even just the tightening alone is a contraction - you can tell the difference between the two.
Hope this helps!