How long does pre-labor last before active labor?

I am thinking more of hours, not days or weeks. Even though they say the contractions have to be regular AND get closer together/stronger that does not always apply to everyone, labor is different for everyone.

When I went into labor with my first son I was having the same BH contractions as before, only thing was there were a lot of them, they didn't even hurt, felt like normal BH. When I started timing it went from 10 min, 7 min, 5 min, then back up to 7 or 10 min, I thought it was nothing since it was irregular but I was wrong.

I went to the bathroom and there was my bloody show, 30 min later I got to the hospital and was 5cm dilated, still NO PAIN! I didn't start hurting until I hit 7cm and by then any pain relief was too late. In short my labor lasted about 3 hrs.

There seems to be a sort of pattern with you, you also may be having more BH during the night than you think, but you sleep thru them. I would say you are beginning labor because of the pressure with the pain, and it seems to be getting worse. Get checked to be safe.

BH usually picks up more towards the end so its hard to tell what is the real thing because of what I went thru.

It all depends on you and your baby, it could last a few days or ever weeks. See your doctor maybe he can give you some help on what to do.

Well, unfortunately it can be days...or weeks. I was in pre-labour for 2 weeks!