Should i be dilated at 30 weeks

Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. In most pregnancies, the cervix remains long and closed until late in the third trimester. At this point, your baby starts to drop down into the pelvis. This puts pressure on the cervix, causing it to thin out or efface and open up or dilate in preparation for labor. Once labor begins, contractions and the descent of the baby will cause your cervix to dilate fully, allowing your baby to enter the birth canal and, ultimately, be born.

Cervical dilation is measured in centimeters. Your cervix must dilate from zero to 10 centimeters before your baby can be born. As you get closer to your due date, your cervix may start to dilate without you realizing it.

Your doctor or midwife will be able to tell if this is happening when they do a routine cervical check. Some providers will check your cervix between the 35th and 37th weeks of pregnancy, when they do your group B strep GBS screening. Other providers will wait until closer to your due date, or only check your cervix if you are having some contractions.

At 1 cm dilated, the cervical opening is approximately the width of your index finger. When it gets to 10 cm, with the help of contractions during active labor, it will be about the width of a large bagel. The big question you may have about being dilated is whether or not that means that your baby is likely to be born soon.

While being dilated is certainly a positive step towards labor, in and of itself it is not a sign of labor or even that labor is coming in a certain amount of time. When the cervix dilates painlessly without any contractions, it is a condition called "incompetent cervix. An incompetent cervix can be caused by damage during surgeries that involve the cervix such as a LEEP procedure, dilation and curettage or abortion, damage during a previous birth, or congenital abnormalities.

An incompetent cervix is not routinely checked for during pregnancy and therefore is not usually diagnosed until after a second or third-trimester pregnancy loss has occurred. If you or your doctor suspect that you may have an incompetent cervix, your doctor can evaluate you early in pregnancy. Usually, a diagnosis can be made by serial ultrasounds used to measure the cervical opening and the length of the cervix. If an incompetent cervix is caught early enough, a procedure known as a cerclage, in which the cervix is stitched closed, can be performed.

This treatment may prevent pregnancy loss or preterm birth. Once you reach about 6 cm dilation, you're in the active stage of labor. At this point your contractions become very regular, longer lasting, and more painful. You probably won't know when you're precisely 6 cm dilated. However, as a general rule, you'll want to call your provider and possibly head to the hospital or birth center when you've had regular, painful contractions that each last about 60 seconds and occur every 5 to 7 minutes for at least an hour.

During the active stage of labor, your cervix dilates from around 6 cm to the full 10 cm. The last part of active labor, when the cervix dilates fully from 8 to 10 cm, is called transition. This process takes about 5 to 7 hours if you're a first-time mom, or between 2 and 4 hours if you've had a baby before.

The exact duration of this stage is different for everyone. Once your cervix is 10 cm dilated and percent effaced, you're ready to start pushing. You'll probably feel a strong urge to push at this point. When your cervix is 50 percent effaced, it's about 2 cm long. At this point, it's halfway to becoming short and thin enough to allow your baby to pass through the uterus and into the vagina.

Most effacement usually happens during the first stage of labor, when your cervix is dilating to 6 cm. This process can take several hour or days, and will likely be accompanied by early signs of labor such as Braxton Hicks contractions and losing your mucus plug. When your cervix is 60 percent effaced, it's 60 percent of the way toward becoming short and thin enough to allow your baby to pass through the uterus.

Most of the effacement process happens during the early stage of labor when your cervix is dilating to 6 cm, and may take several hours or even days. A cervix that's 70 percent effaced is 70 percent of the way toward becoming short and thin enough to allow your baby to pass through the uterus. This process typically happens during the early stage of labor when your cervix is dilating to 6 cm, and may take several hours or even days.

Once your cervix reaches 80 percent effacement, it's almost short enough to allow your baby through the uterus, assuming it is accompanied by dilation.

You may reach 80 percent effacement or higher during the early stage of labor, or this may happen once you reach active labor.

The same is true for 90 percent and percent effacement. Either way, effacement and dilation must both happen completely before you can begin pushing. In other words, you must be percent effaced and 10 cm dilated for your baby to pass through the birth canal. Video: Labor and birth. BabyCenter's editorial team is committed to providing the most helpful and trustworthy pregnancy and parenting information in the world.

When creating and updating content, we rely on credible sources: respected health organizations, professional groups of doctors and other experts, and published studies in peer-reviewed journals. We believe you should always know the source of the information you're seeing.

Learn more about our editorial and medical review policies. How to Tell When Labor Begins. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Allina Health. Stages of labor. American Pregnancy Association. First Stage of Labor. Cleveland Clinic. Mayo Clinic. And I wasn't on the terb pills like I am now. So there is hope. He was absolutely fine, spent no time in the NICU, and came home with me!

I will be praying for you to be able to hold on a few more weeks!! I also contract constantly and it is definitely annoying. I was 2 cm dilated at my 32 week appointment. Went to the hospital for 48 hours. At my 35 week appointment last week I dilated to 3 cm.

I am 36 weeks today, stop the Nifedipine, am now on modified bed rest, and have been slowly losing my mucus plug. At the 32 week appointment, I didn't think I'd make it this far 36 weeks.

Hang in there. You should be fine. I know my doc won't even check my cervix past 30m wks bc they say you are going to begin to thin at that point anyway, they also stop FFN tests at th 34 week and won't send me for steriod shots after that point I had a thinned out cervix at 29 weeks and made it to 38 with my daughter who weighed almost 8 lbs 2 wks early!! I think everyone is sooooo different with how quickly they dilate. With my ds, I was a soft and a fingertip at 24 weeks This time, 17P shots helped me to avoid dialation until 31 weeks