When you are in late pregnancy, you may go into labor at any time. For women in labor, when to go to the hospital is not a problem, but for first-time mothers, there is a lot of confusion. When to go to the hospital? Just remember the 3+1 points. Regular contractions After regular labor, there will be a contraction every 3-5 minutes or so, and each contraction will last 30-60 seconds. Before that, there will be a contraction every 10 minutes or so, and the intensity of the contraction is not high. At the beginning of the contractions, you can observe the contractions for a while and do not need to rush to the hospital until the contractions are about every 5-7 minutes. Some people may have some irregular contractions before they go into labor, and they may disappear after a while. For those who have never experienced contractions, you may not be able to imagine what they feel like. Vaginal bleeding A small amount of bloody discharge (redness) is nothing to worry about, you can observe it for a while, but if the bleeding is heavy, you need to go to the hospital for emergency treatment. Rupture of membranes After rupture of membranes, there is a continuous flow of amniotic fluid from the vagina, which appears as a medium to large amount of colorless fluid and needs to be differentiated from urine and vaginal discharge. Urine flow is mostly controlled and smells like urine; vaginal discharge is usually small and does not flow continuously. For vaginal discharge that cannot be identified, it is best to go to the hospital to get help from the doctor to determine if the membranes have ruptured prematurely. After premature rupture of membranes, you don’t have to lie down and call an ambulance to go to the hospital as rumored on the internet, you can just call a car or your family to drive you to the hospital normally. In fact, the probability of umbilical cord prolapse after the rupture of fetal membranes is very small, but if you feel a foreign body in the vagina after the early rupture of fetal membranes or if you feel a cord-like object falling into the vagina, you should be alert to the occurrence of umbilical cord prolapse. If you experience regular contractions, vaginal bleeding and premature rupture of membranes after full term, you need to go to the hospital. Another reason why you need to go to the hospital in late pregnancy is “significant decrease in fetal movement”. After the first trimester, as the amniotic fluid volume decreases and the fetal head becomes pelvic, most mothers will feel that the fetal movement is not as frequent as before. However, the number of fetal movements per hour should still be more than 3 (if it is less than 3 times/hour, add 1 hour, 2 hours of fetal movements full 6 times will be enough). If it is less than the above criteria, it indicates that there may be intrauterine hypoxia, you need to go to the hospital to see the emergency room, so that the doctor can do further tests to help determine. But there is no need to be too anxious to count the fetal movements anytime and anywhere, because the baby sometimes sleeps for a longer period of time or the fetal movements are not too active. For example, if the fetal movement is not obvious in the morning, you can look at the afternoon session, if the movement is normal in the afternoon, there is no need to rush to the hospital, and so on.