Moms who've had fast (precipitous) labors...

I have homebirths with a licensed midwife, so induction is not an issue. However, she comes from about an hour away, so there is always a risk of an accidental UC. My first two births were 13 and 7 hours, but my 3rd was only around 2 hours. The midwife made it 20 minutes before dd was born. I just had my fourth 3 weeks ago and we fully expected that I would catch him myself since she probably wouldn't make it in time. But, though it appeared at first to be exactly like my 3rd birth, he was posterior and it ended up being a 9 hour labor. So the midwife and my doula were both able to make it with about 4 hours to spare before he came out (sunny side up- arg). We believe that if he had been in the correct position, he would have also had a 2 hour or so labor. Hope that helps Best of luck to you!!

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Having just had a baby in the passenger seat of our moving car, I'd recommend sitting on the tablecloth and/or towels. And also consider wearing a skirt or dress and no underwear (or very stretchy underwear).

I wish you the best of luck!

My first was a 4 hour induced labor.

My second was a precipitous 2 hour labor, accidently unassisted, purposefully at home. I'm glad I planned for a homebirth because I seriously had no idea I was going to go that quickly (though I had a suspicion it would be a quick labor), and if I had gotten in the car by the time I realized I was in full blown labor, my daughter would have been born in the car. My bed was much more comfortable than a moving car.

Given my experience, I thought this wiki article on precipitous labors was kind of funny, especially the bottom part on going "to the hospital right away" or "call 911 to receive help and instructions."

I am freebirther after 2 unecaesarians. My first labour (ds3) was prodromal for four weeks followed by 9 hrs of 'productive' labour that brought him out.

THEN ds4 was a true precipitous labour. My water broke, then three minutes with three contractions and he was in my hands being rubbed to breathe, which he did, pinked up right away and was alert and strong. I was sure I had torn from front to back, but it turned out that during precipitous labours, that is very rare; the body just lets go all that once, no stretching, no easing into anything, just open up and let it all out. I didn't have a scrape and didn't feel liike I had a baby actually. It was strange.

Anyway, if that's the sort of labour I'm going to have, then it's just as well that I wouldn't want to be attended, obviously.

Why would there be pressure to induce a proven efficient body? Is this to make sure you are attended, so instead of letting your body do what it does so well when it does it, you preempt the real labour with an induction? That's sooooooooo weird.

That for me would be the absolutely easiest defense for allowing the woman's body to do it's work without interference, not a reason to make sure it is interfered with. Wow.

I would love to be able to anticipate precipitous labours!!!

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Yep, the plan is to sit on the vinyl table cloth in the car, have the towels at my side or near my feet, and wear a skirt. ROFL. Watch me have a 12 hour labor.

I've got two precipitous labours under my belt, one was induction due to due to IUGR, but it was fast, particularly for a first timer at 37 weeks, 1hr 45mins. Second labour was supposed to be a homebirth, but I had some complications and went into labour in the bath on the antenatal ward, having been not dilated or effaced at all during a check prior to getting in the bath, was 6cm when they checked me about 10mins later, baby was OP and stayed that way, so it was about 4hrs total, plenty of time to get to a place of birth, but it was transition from the first contraction, my "travelling" took less time than it would take to get from the car park to the labour ward and I was already vomitting, but I also didn't believe it was labour, had it not been for the long 2nd stage I don't think a midwife would have made it in time had we been at home.

So I was pretty anxious about number 3, we were with midwives and their birth centre was 2mins from our house, we never did settle on whether we would go there to use the pool, or rent a pool for home, I got depressed during the pregnancy and in the end it became a source of extreme anxiety, so we went to see an OB to talk about induction. After we went through my medical history, she consulted with colleagues and ended up advising an early c-section, for different reasons to ones we'd expected, which solved anxiety issues about precipitous labour, just replaced them with anxiety about surgery, worrying about precipitous labour may well be preferable to the intense fear I had about dieing in surgery! It was all a bit of a moot point in the end anyway as my BP shot up, so even if we'd stayed with midwives I don't think we'd have managed to stick it out systolics of 110 from a baseline of seventy something are not good! Moral of the story, I spent a lot of time worrying about something (preciptous labour) that turned out not to be an issue, for reasons we didn't expect.

our second was born in 1 hr, probably could have been shorter if it weren't for the 1/2 hr car ride to the hospital, we got there was put into triage as soon as the nurses left the room I buzzed and said the baby is coming, they told me that the contractions weren't strong enough had him within 3 pushes .
------that is my only short fast labor- since I had the others after that at home no one pressured me to do anything.