how much does fatigue/exhaustion affect labor? *birth professionals*

[caedmyn]

I've had four homebirths, three of them waterbirths.  Two of them were fairly typical labors, two were somewhat disfunctional IMO with sporadic contractions that were more intense than the contractions in my typical labors.  Length of labor was similar in all births, 5 hours at the shortest to 7.5 hours at the longest.  I've had two vertex babies (DD-LOA, DS1-ROA), one breech baby, (DS2) and one LOT baby that may or may not have turned breech the last couple of hours of labor (DH caught him last minute and swears he was breech but it sure felt like a head I was pushing out).  The ROA & LOT babies were the two with the dysfunctional labors.  I don't know if there were position issues or if it  was related to me being very very tired all throughout labor.  During my last 3 pregnancies I have been completely exhausted for no clear reason for most of the pregnancy.  This last time was particularly bad, and I only got 4 hours sleep the night before DS3 was born due to some prodromal labor, so was even more exhausted than usual.  Labor started between 4 & 4:30 pm with regular contractions that got progressively closer together.  By 6:30 pm they had been around 3 minutes apart for a few contractions and were quite strong.  Immediately after that I got very light-headed due to some combination of fatigue and low blood sugar and the contractions become very irregular (5-15 minutes apart) but very intense.  They did not get any more regular until the last 4-5 contractions before he was born even though I ate something right away and tried to rest during labor.  DS3 was finally born at 11:15 pm after I spent a lot of the last 2.5 hours rocking back and forth on my hands and knees to bring on contractions (at the suggestion that it might help baby get into a better position if the irregular contractions were due to poor positioning...it definitely helped the contractions come more frequently).  DS1's labor was similar, with contractions that were regular initially but became irregular but then I'd have double & triple peak contractions when I had them.  I was quite tired when I went into labor with him too.

So anyway, I'm processing things now that he's two weeks old and wondering if the irregular but very intense contractions were most likely due to positioning issues, or whether exhaustation might have played a large part in that.  I do also have some issues with my sacrum being out of alignment when I'm pregnant but that didn't seem to affect my labor with DS2 (the breech baby) so I don't know if that could have been a factor or not.

[IdentityCrisisMama]

Bump for some thoughts and to come back to this thread. Anyone have some input for this mama? 

[ChristaM]

I would say that a lot has to do with positioning. After having four weeks of on again off again contractions I finally went into labor after getting more than just a regular chiropractic adjustment. I went into the chiropractor once I started having contractions and he did an adjustment on the right side of my stomach (baby was ROA) and baby instantly flipped anterior and was born five hours later. I felt like some of my labor issues also might have been emotionally based but I believe a good portion of the reasons for me having so much labor before actually going ini labor was because he was poorly positioned. He spent the first week sleeping with his head cocked to te right and his hands by his ears which, to me, proves that he just wasn't in the position to come out prior to me getting adjusted.