Heated or Non Heated Birthing Pool? - advice

[Jayneypops]

Hi,

After meeting with my midwife for my 25 weeks appointment today I am pretty sure that I would like a water birth at home.

I have seen an inflatable pool-in-a-box for £100, which is non heated. I am wondering if its worth paying £250 to hire a heated pool for 4 weeks, or just buy a non heated one for £100?

Has anyone got any experiences with non heated pools and how did you keep the temperature warm? - I have read that if you are giving birth in the water, you should not let the water temperature go below normal body temp, how would you make sure?

Ive got images of my Husband going backwards and forwards with kettles and buckets!

Thanks

 

[NaturalMomma]

I used a La Bassine which is not heated. A shower curtain, tarp or pool cover works awesome at keeping the pool heated. I filled mine up at 9 am and it was still hot at 10 pm.

 

[Jayneypops]

wow it stayed warm for 11 hours? Thats amazing.

I have seen the La Bassine pools, are they considered to be the best? Last night I began worrying bout some 'what ifs'.
What if I need an emergency C section?
What if the baby gets stuck?

Part of me thinks maybe I should do the standard thing and go to the hospital for these reasons, however, I would still want a water birth and would be so upset if I got there are there wasn't a pool free (my local hospital only has 2).

Its so hard to know what to do for the best isn't it?
My MW said that in her experience home births are better as women tend to have a shorter labour, babys tend to feed easier as mom and baby are both more relaxed and there is less need for pain relief (apart from Gas and Air). Also, my Husband can be with me 24/7 whereas in hospital, after delivery and once Im on the ward, visitors are sent home I think being in a strange environment at such an emotional time ON MY OWN would be a bit distressing.

Youc an see Im talking myself OUT of the hospital idea!

Thanks for your reply x

 

[Waiting4bb]

I am wondering about this too. I live in Montana and I'm due in Feb when it's going to be freezing cold outside. I don't think a birthing pool would stay warm enough in my house unless it was right next to the woodstove. Then it would get too hot!

Jayney, personally I think you should go with the homebirth. I think it will be a very rewarding experience for you. I've heard over and over how much more relaxed women are when they give birth at home. You should go for it!

 

[Mervs Mum]

I can also vouch for the la bassines. I use them with my clients and they keep the heat very well. For my own home birth we filled it nice and hot at 9am after my water broke and covered it till I got in at 8/9pm - we still had to cool it down!

 

[Jayneypops]

Thank you 'waitingforbb'. The more I learn about home births (including watching some clips on YouTube - really useful by the way!) I get more and more convinced that its for me. My Midwife is also very positive about her experiences with ladies at home so providing all goes well in my pregnancy (still 15 weeks to go) I will be delivering at home

Im actually now excited rather than terrified (which is how I felt about a hospital birth)

 

[lynnikins]

we only had trouble getting ours full to the right temp and right level in time lol if id had another hour in labour we would have managed it but we didnt lol but it was 36 degrees when i gave birth ( outside of the pool ) and still 30 degrees after being uncovered 7 hrs later when the boys hoped in for a post breakfast splash about

 

[Waiting4bb]

Thank you 'waitingforbb'. The more I learn about home births (including watching some clips on YouTube - really useful by the way!) I get more and more convinced that its for me. My Midwife is also very positive about her experiences with ladies at home so providing all goes well in my pregnancy (still 15 weeks to go) I will be delivering at home

Im actually now excited rather than terrified (which is how I felt about a hospital birth)

I love watching YouTube homebirth videos. They are so amazing! I feel the same way when I think about a hospital birth. Not that you can't have a relaxing birth in a hospital, I'm sure lots of women have, but to me if you can do it at home... why not? As long as you're healthy and you've been given the thumbs up. I mean at least try it with this one and if you don't like the experience you never have to do it again.

 

[becstar]

wow it stayed warm for 11 hours? Thats amazing.

I have seen the La Bassine pools, are they considered to be the best? Last night I began worrying bout some 'what ifs'.
What if I need an emergency C section?
What if the baby gets stuck?

Part of me thinks maybe I should do the standard thing and go to the hospital for these reasons, however, I would still want a water birth and would be so upset if I got there are there wasn't a pool free (my local hospital only has 2).

Its so hard to know what to do for the best isn't it?
My MW said that in her experience home births are better as women tend to have a shorter labour, babys tend to feed easier as mom and baby are both more relaxed and there is less need for pain relief (apart from Gas and Air). Also, my Husband can be with me 24/7 whereas in hospital, after delivery and once Im on the ward, visitors are sent home I think being in a strange environment at such an emotional time ON MY OWN would be a bit distressing.

Youc an see Im talking myself OUT of the hospital idea!

Thanks for your reply x

I had a hospital birth last time as I was induced at 16 days over. The actual delivery experience was fine, but I hated being on the ward before and after. My husband was sent home and not even allowed to see us onto the ward at 4am as they said it was unfair to other mums there who he might see. SO after 36ish hours of no sleep, I had no sleep the rest of that night as I was so terrrified on this ward with other mums... scared she'd stop breathing if I didn't watch her, scared she'd wake other babies and mums...

The healthcare assistant shouted at me in front of everyone for letting my daughter go more than 4 hours without a feed ('it's very, very bad to leave your baby so long with no food') - which I'd never been told - the girl was asleep!and then got stroppy as I didn't want her to show me how to bath Ilana (I didn't want her bathed until her cord came off, and I didn't want to old cow to touch her anyway. She also made me feel disgusting for saving a hiuge blood clot to show the midwives which I'd been told to do if I was worried - how was I to know what was normal?!

Overall if I could have given birth there and then been able to get into my own bed it would have been ok, but the short-staffing, the miserable staff, the noise and fear, being ignored by the midwives when I wanted help as otjhers needed it more... I really want to be at home this time (and did last time too!)

 

[Sam Pearson]

We found it very straightforward. We put the blow up pool (Deluxe Aquarium from ToysRUs) near the kitchen. We bought a Universal adaptor for the kitchen tap from the hardware store (around $12) so that we could attach a new legnth of garden hose ($8) to the kitchen sink tap. When it lost a bit too much heat dh topped it up with hot water from the kettle. You don't need a thermometer - Mum will know how she likes it. If your water source is clean enough to drink it's clean enough to birth in. If you have a crappy hot water system, however, you could purchase a water heater (not sure where you get these from but they heat the water very efficiently).

It's a good idea not to fill the pool too full so you can add hot/cold water as needed and also in case Mum or support people lean on the edge of the pool. Ours was a bit full and quite a lot of water was sloshing over the edge at the end.

I've read that the ideal pool depth for Mum is at armpit level.