Kate Middleton's 12-hour labour with royal baby boy was 'textbook,' experts reveal

Kate Middleton's labour may have felt like a lengthy wait for royal fans around the globe yesterday, but it seems she actually had a "textbook" labour.

Experts have revealed that the Duchess of Cambridge's labour was a very typically time-frame for a first-time mother, with labours typically spanning more than 12 hours.

Kate was admitted to hospital on Monday at around 5.30am, where she was believed to be "in the early stages of labour."

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So if her contractions began an hour before she arrived at the Lindo Wing of St Mary's Hospital, London, she would have been in labour for around half a day before giving birth at 4.24pm.

Speaking after the birth of the royal baby boy, consultant obstetrician Patrick O'Brien - spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists - confirmed: "With first baby, you usually dilate about a centimetre an hour and you've got to get from closed to 10 centimetres - which is fully dilated - so that's about 10 hours.

"When you reach fully dilated usually you wait for an hour or so to allow the baby's head to come as low as possible, and then you push - and the pushing is about an hour to an hour and a half."

He added: "So about 12 hours is the average - sometimes quicker, sometimes slower, but that's what you have to budget for."

Meanwhile, Breedagh Hughes, Northern Ireland director for the Royal College of Midwives, said it would appear that Kate was "in established labour" when she arrived at the hospital.

"(It is normally) one centimetre dilatation an hour and then one to two hours for the head to come down and deliver," she explained.

"But we don't know what stage of labour she was at when she went in. There is a thing called the latent phase of labour where you're in labour but you're not really cracking on just yet. Sometimes that takes a few hours to establish.

"Obviously Kate was bang on the money and she came in when she was in established labour and it sounds as if it was a textbook labour.

"Her labour was for a very normal period of time and the baby arrived at a very normal point in her pregnancy."

Luckily for the Duchess of Cambridge, it seems she had a very normal and healthy pregnancy - apart from the severe morning sickness she battled in the very early stages.

Breedagh added: "Apart from her severe morning sickness early in her pregnancy it sounds as if it has been a very normal and healthy and uneventful pregnancy, and that's brilliant for Kate and you just wish everybody else could have the same type of pregnancy."

Kensington Palace said mother and baby were "doing well" last night.

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