5-1-1 Rule

People always ask us how they will know it’s time to go to the hospital. This can be a hard decision to make. We always use the 5-1-1 rule as a good guideline for deciding when it’s time to go to the hospital.

• Contractions: When your contractions are regular, coming every 5 minutes or less.

• Duration: Each contraction should last around 1 minute or longer.

• Consistency: This pattern should continue for at least 1 hour.

Remember, contractions need to be strong to make cervical changes. It’s important that your contractions are 5 minutes apart, last for 1 minute, and this pattern has persisted for an hour. Additionally, the contractions should be strong enough that you have to use pain management techniques to cope with them. You should be unable to talk through them and need to breathe through them. This usually signals the beginning of active labor. Depending on your personal medical history and what’s going on in your labor, your provider may encourage you to go to the hospital sooner or later.