I tell my students, ‘I don’t really wish for you to have this kind of labor.’” In normal labor, each contraction gradually opens the cervix and prods the baby out. “People would tell me I was lucky, and I don’t feel like that. “It felt like being hit by a truck and dragged along behind,” says Stephanie Spitzer-Hanks, a doula and childbirth-class instructor who had precipitous labor with her two children. Like many topics in pregnancy and childbirth, precipitous labor remains understudied.Ĭounterintuitively, perhaps, an extremely fast labor is not always a better one. But otherwise, doctors can’t predict for sure who will have one, especially among first-time moms with no previous birth experience. Having had a previous fast birth, like Camp did, increases the chances of precipitous labor. It is uncommon but not entirely rare, occurring in about 3 percent of deliveries, usually in second, third, or later labors. What Camp experienced is called “precipitous labor,” when a baby is born after fewer than three hours of regular contractions. An ER nurse finally appeared to take the baby-still blue and limp-and resuscitated him right on the curb. His umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. A security guard ran over to a terrified Camp in the passenger’s seat, and in that moment, her son slipped out and into the security guard’s hands. Her husband tore out of the car, yelling for help. They were turning into the ER when she saw the baby’s head between her legs. He drove through town like a madman, running red lights. But the first contraction after Camp’s water broke at home had been so intense-“immediate horrific pain I could barely talk”-that she and her husband rushed into the car. Needless to say, she didn’t make it into the hospital in time. Then her water broke, and 12 minutes later, she was holding a baby in her arms. Even so, she was not prepared for what happened: One day, at 40 weeks, she started feeling what she thought was just pregnancy back pain. Her first labor had been short for a first-time mother (seven hours), and second babies tend to be in more of a hurry. When Tess Camp was pregnant with her second child, she knew she would need to get to the hospital fast when the baby came.
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