Does labor always start at night?! Why?!

[Anonymous]

Anecdotally, it seems that labor always starts at night. Why is this?

When did your labor start?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, it seems that labor always starts at night. Why is this?

When did your labor start?

Not for me. 3:00 in the afternoon driving home from work on a Friday in rush hour traffic. JOY! I had a 1.5 hour ride home to meet my husband and then an hour ride to the hospital. No fun.

[Anonymous]

First baby started at the grocery store at like 11 am, second started at 10 pm

[Anonymous]

Mine started at 4 AM - do you count that as night?

[Anonymous]

I do believe statistically, this is correct - labor is more likely to start at night, although obviously it's far from universal.

I've heard that it's evolutionary - it's safer to be laboring at night when it's dark than in the daytime where you're visible/exposed.

In fact, there's some evidence that this is driven by light, and thus arriving at the hospital once labor starts can slow labor down a bit (not much at all!) if you arrive in the middle of the night, because the hospital is so well lit.

I'm not like a crunchy granola mom or even an attachment parent or anything - gave birth in a hospital with an epidural, sleep trained right at 4 months - but I believe there's some science to back this up, I remember reading some summaries of studies on it when I was pregnant. Too lazy to look for sources right now, but maybe someone else can find them.

[Anonymous]

1st baby 1am
2nd baby 3am

[Anonymous]

First baby 6am
Second baby 8pm

[Anonymous]

Contractions started at 11 am.

[Anonymous]

Started 8 am here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do believe statistically, this is correct - labor is more likely to start at night, although obviously it's far from universal.

I've heard that it's evolutionary - it's safer to be laboring at night when it's dark than in the daytime where you're visible/exposed.

In fact, there's some evidence that this is driven by light, and thus arriving at the hospital once labor starts can slow labor down a bit (not much at all!) if you arrive in the middle of the night, because the hospital is so well lit.

I'm not like a crunchy granola mom or even an attachment parent or anything - gave birth in a hospital with an epidural, sleep trained right at 4 months - but I believe there's some science to back this up, I remember reading some summaries of studies on it when I was pregnant. Too lazy to look for sources right now, but maybe someone else can find them.

Oh love it! I shall hide in my closet all day.

[Anonymous]

5 kids. Labor did start at night for 1 of them, but the other 4 started in the morning. Early morning ranging from 5am to noon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine started at 4 AM - do you count that as night?

+1 5 am for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine started at 4 AM - do you count that as night?

Yes. Basically anytime when you should be sleeping but go into labor instead.

[Anonymous]

#1 - 11:30 PM 1st contraction (11:34PM 2nd contraction!)
#2 - water broke at 3:30 AM
#3 - feeling off all day - but labor started at 11:30 PM

[Anonymous]

Mine only started with 10 hours of pitocin or so, but yes, most women go into labor at night.