storbarnsförälder

The difference between Braxton Hicks and prodromal labour is obvious to me - the former feels like, um, weight-lifting, or clenching one's biceps to show them off, and labour (prodromal or otherwise) feels like actually doing something serious with the same muscles. The distinction between prodromal labour and imminent-baby labour is much less clear and that's why a lot of people like to claim there's a typical rate of cervical dilation and base it on whether one has dilated past 3 or 4 cm or not. Actually, the only way to tell the difference is afterwards - one resulted in a baby after a relatively short period, and the other didn't.

A startling amount of obstetric and standardised midwifery practice is not actually evidence-based but common-sense and it-stands-to-reason based (and of course once you *start* doing things a certain way it becomes very difficult to gather data on alternative ways, especially if common-sense tells you that the standardised way prevents risks of various kinds).