[Closed] Home water birth - did you rent or buy the kit, any tips?

Poop scoop to fish the poop out the pool.

Just rent, too much crap in world/house already and once the baby arrives you wont have time to deal with it

And 🙂 at the poop scoop

And.. if you are doing it at home be aware that you might not have the midwife around when the baby arrives if it all starts a little quickly. That's fun

Have you arranged this with a midwife, given Mrs B has to look after 3-4 ladies at a time I'd be impressed if there is spare capacity to allow a midwife to be there.
What if it all goes pear shaped? How far away from hospital are you?

Friend had very tough time with a home water birth, wife and baby rushed to hospital, he had to rush out and didn't have time to clean up the mess till quite a while later !

We've three kids, only the second would have been suitable for a home-birth - [b]and you only know this after the event...[/b]

First was 'pulled' out by a vast team very quickly and the third was an emergency section, on a bank holiday.

Anything else we should consider/ remember to get our do?

Yes - consider what would happen if things were to go belly up. With our first the "plan" was a water birth, the reality was a rush trip to theatre and a purple, non responsive baby for a few minutes. If we had been at home I would have two children today and not three.

The 'plan' is only there to make the Mother feel at ease, the medics wait and see what happens.

I know where I would rather be, but I guess a water birth at home sounds a nice and romantic way of doing it

My wife toyed with he idea of a home water birth, I then got a couple of our friends who obs/ gynae doctors to have a word! The general consensus was that if NOTHING goes wrong then it can be a bit more relaxing, but and this is a huge BUT if the baby starts getting into difficulty do you really want to be dicking around for the 20/30mins it might take you to either get into hospital or for Doctors to get to you?

Similar experience to WML here also. So from my own personal perspective I can't really understand why anyone would want to deny their wife and child immediate access to the best possible care.

have a stern word with your dearly beloved and remind her that it's your baby too and put her 'hippy' birthing plan ideas into 'soft focus' of idyllic resuscitation, brain damage from hypoxia and a lifetime of peg tube feeding requiring wheelchair access wherever you go. Which will be mostly in and out of hospital for years and years.

theblackmount - Member

I can't really understand why anyone would want to deny their wife and child immediate access to the best possible care.

Because being around doctors increases the chance of interventions which themselves carry risks.

For women having a second or subsequent baby, planned home births are as safe for the baby as planned birth in hospital and offer health and other benefits for the mother.
For women having a first baby, a planned home birth increases the risk for the baby somewhat. In all groups of women, there were at least 990/1000 births without adverse outcomes. There were 9.3 adverse outcomes for babies per 1000 planned home births compared with 5.3 per 1000 for ones planned in obstetric units, and this finding was statistically significant. So there may be around four extra adverse outcomes in every 1000 planned home births compared with ones planned in obstetric units.

[b]Birthplace results show 88% of planned home births were ‘normal births’ compared to fewer than 60% of planned obstetric unit births.
[/b]

http://www.nct.org.uk/birth/home-birth-safe

I know where I would rather be, but I guess a water birth at home sounds a nice and romantic way of doing it

Ah..the romance of crapping yourself in a paddling pool in the living room.

Don't forget the candles 8)

Would four be enough?

What about a water birth in the delivery suite as a compromise.. No blood or poop to clean up either.

If you are lucky to have neighbours with a large family, just borrow thei r extra large wheelie bin and use that as the birthing pool, dead easy to empty afterwards in the back street o ruse it to water the plants.

>Because being around doctors increases the chance of interventions which themselves carry risks.<

But:

>So there may be around four extra adverse outcomes in every 1000 planned home births compared with ones planned in obstetric units.<

Good enough for me.

Doubt the OP is behind this choice. Most women make this important choice for themselves... Also I'm sure the will have been advised of risks and benefits of all options by a midwife so let them be.

What about a water birth in the delivery suite as a compromise.. No blood or poop to clean up either.

This, in a midwife-led unit co-located with an obstetric led unit so the cavalry are nearby if it all goes pear shaped.

After our first the midwife encouraged any more to be home births. My other half opted for that as the hospital stressed her way more than the birth. Second arrived at home, without issue and with two midwives present, both eating me out of biscuits and tea! OH was in the bath to be 'more comfortable' and was told she could stay there if she wanted - she did and out it popped. Clean up kits had already been provided by the hospital and an hour later we were on our own.

Doubt the OH would have been happy at home for the first though - with all the unknowns.

EDIT: we were only five mins from the hospital if we needed it.

Cloudnine is probably suggesting the best compromise - depends on whether or not you want a home birth most or a water birth 🙂 I personally wouldn't mix the two...
Both my kids were born at home. Two midwifes were in attendance for both births (and the local obs/gynae popped in for the first while he was walking the dogs...). Our local area (Allerdale) had a strong team of midwifes that were very pro-home births though.
PS I'm fairly confident that I don't fit the 'hippy' description above but then again its an easy cheap shot.

For some ladies, the idea of a water birth and the potential extra relaxation it offers is a good thing, but some don't actually like it when they get in there. Equally, as you can't always guarantee when the little one may make an appearance, you could have the 'pleasure' of a large bath sitting in the house to try and find a way round each time you are in that room, and making things nicely damp for several days/weeks.

Two nippers, both born at home with nothing more than paracetamol to help, even wirh the stiches, my wife seems to combine 'hippy dippy' with 'hard as nails' when the mood takes her.

She did the research, made an informed decision and we both agreed that if there were any signs that either birth may have complications we'd go straight to hospital, there's a fair degree of luck involved but overall the friends and NCT buddies who gave birth at home on average had a better, calmer experience and found the first few months easier less post natal depression etc.

Do your research, make a decision but don't be dogmatic, be prepared to switch to plan B quickly if required, the mother and baby's health should always be the top priority but if these are both looking fine then it's really her call, she'll be the one doing all the work.

its a personal choice but for both of mine we needed the hospital facilities and it would be my recommendation and ignore the dreamy world of the nct etc.

My best friend chose a birthing centre. It went horribly wrong. Their son has four limb cerebral palsy, is blind and can't feed himself. He sued the hospital and after 5 years they admitted liability and an out of court settlement. Their life has been hell. Obviously that is at the extreme end of the spectrum but you only get one chance and I'd always go to a big hospital if only to reduce the chance of what Ive seen my friend go through even though it's less 'natural'

Whatever you choose though, hope it all goes well!

Bought from ebay and sold on ebay afterwards.. We didnt use it in the end. Be aware it takes an eternity to fill up. I did a dry run to see what it should look like inflated and how much space it took. God knows how you keep it warm for the duration. We arranged a midwife and they schedule some kit to drop off beforehand.

Consider that there is limited pain relief available. Good luck with the birth and hope it all works out.

Yeah your choice OP but I filed home birth under '**** that' yeah child birth is the most natural thing in the world as no doubt some hemp skirt wearing earth mother told you - but never forget nature is cruel and brutal when it wants to be and a crack team of consultants and mid-wives top trumps familiar soft furnishings when the inevitable 'complication' raises its head. Modern medical science it's ace.

Mmmm I suspect that didn't pan out quite how the op had anticipated.

Second arrived at home, without issue and with two midwives present

Seems a little indulgent IMHO
Of course at least one of those could have been an off duty friend/relative/neighbour

I can only agree with the nay sayers I'm afraid. Junior 1 needed special care. The only friend we know who went for a home birth experienced complications and can have no more children as a result.

Don't forget the legionnaires too

All four of our children were born at home, 2 with water. If you wanna chat feel free to email kenadolphe AT Hotmail DOT com

Given the medical and technological advantages of having a baby in a hospital I can not understand why you would take the risk...

Crikey, I didn't expect that responses from the STW brigade!

We're not hippies and we both want this. Four of my nieces and nephews are water babies, all delivered at home perfectly fine, they're in their 20's now and having babies of their own.

We are 5 min from the hospital if things go pear shaped and the midwife's are completely behind us.

Kja, thanks, will do.

We have had 2 children as home births bought the birthing pool for the first one but my wife liked the tens machine so much she didn't want to stop using it to get in the pool. We had 2 midwifes at both the births plus a trainee at one. The only concern the midwife had about the water birth was about my ability to lift my wife out of the pool if the worst was to be happening. They have hoists in hospital. I was very happy that I was more than big enough and strong enough to lift my wife out. Good luck with a nice trouble and stress free birth.

Ok we ARE Hippies (man)! and our daughter was born at home but not a water birth. Our son was a water birth and the only reason that he wasn't born at home was that we had moved to a very small house and there was no room. He was born in the local (now closed) maternity unit.Both births went well with no pain relief at all. My wife says that the first birth at home,although much longer and harder than the seccond at the time she has fonder memories of, as we were together in physical contact at all times which she felt realy helped with the pain. The pool in the water birth was too small for us both for me to hold her and so I felt like a totaly helpless spare part for my son's birth.

Just had a sucsuccessful water birth at home two weeks ago today! The only thing that caused concern was the lack of a waterproof heart rate monitor for the baby (Doppler?) - made me very nervous at one point just before he was born. We rented the kit by the way and was nice and easy, the only extra I needed was a tap adapter for the filling hose.

I'd hate to be the guy who has the job of cleaning rental water baths

I'd hate to be the guy who has the job of cleaning rental water baths

It's probably not so bad, the uniform's quite natty

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They are all different apparently ? we went for a birthing pool , it was fantastic - for the first 20 hours - 20 to 48 hour was nightmare as Mrs got out and wanted bed . luckily we live .01 miles from Hospital (quicker to walk than drive?althought not at 4am for the 3rd time ?) go with what the nurses say they know best and good luck xx
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They are all different apparently ? we went for a birthing pool , it was fantastic - for the first 20 hours - 20 to 48 hour was nightmare as Mrs got out and wanted bed . luckily we live .01 miles from Hospital (quicker to walk than drive?althought not at 4am for the 3rd time ?) go with what the [s]nurses [/s] [b]midwife[/b] say they know best and good luck xx

You'd get a kidney punch if you called my wife a nurse.

geoffj - its the hospital that decide how many staff are present at home births so having two is hardly indulgence is it. Very odd thing to say. It may well be due to hours worked as the first was there on her own for 2-3 hours having been called out at 3am. Damn site cheaper for the NHS as well and gives the mother better rest than being on a maternity ward.

Having a home birth and signing up to the mantra of the NCT are not necessarily the same thing so this hippy hating is also odd. Each to their own and listen to the midwife. Very glad that we're never doing it again though...

You'd get a kidney punch if you called my wife a nurse.

Because...?

Because...?

Because a midwife is better trained/skilled at delivering babies than a nurse.

However, that is all they good at, my wife would give a midwife a punch if they proclaimed to have half the skills of a doctor.

In essence a midwife is fantastic if a delivery is going normally. If things go wrong, quite rightly a doctor takes over.

You'd rather a jnr Dr on the ward for 2 months over a midwife with 20 yrs experience. I'll inform Mrs B when she's home.
Just who tells these know it all Dr's what to do when things go wrong. Majority of Dr's on the wards are jnr Dr's full of text book knowledge but no real idea.

2 staff at home birth not indulgent? Mrs B and another midwife looking after 17 women on ward last night not all labouring granted. Having 2 at your home is indulgent IMHO so you can have your utopian home birth.

100% fine home water birth with our little one here. My partner trained as a miidwife and now teaches hypnobirthing, promotes home birth and sells home birth products online so was fully aware of the benefits and potential issues that could arise, and put at ease in my mind the typical questions being put up here, like "why, [i]surely[/i] in hospital its safer?!" (No, not necessarily).

We hired a private midwife as well which was not cheap but worth it as she was there the whole time, listened to what my partner wanted and only needed to give a little assistance right at the end. She even cleaned up afterwards whilst we spent those precious first few hours chilling out with the new arrival.

[b]My wife laid an egg![/b]

No, not a headline from the Sunday Sport, but something that really happened. [i]This comes under the general heading of advice to expecting parents (rather than anything to do with the home birth argument) and is something that is rarely explained at ante-natal classes.[/i]

Babies don't always come out as babies, they can sometimes be delivered still in the placenta 'born in the caul' as they say, essentially the mother lays an egg!! This can come as a bit of a shock to the poor old father (too bl**dy right). Nothing to be worried about (the midwife cuts open the placenta to magically reveal the baby) but it can be rather worrying if you haven't been told beforehand 😯 (midwives - why isn't this mentioned in ante natal classes??)

Every day is a school day 😀

Natrix - Surely not the placenta but the membranes?

Good to hear more positives than before. We've decided to buy a pool and hopefully use it for no 2 or sell it on.

They come with, and you can buy, liners for them to keep them clean and hygienic - I doubt you'd need a hazmat suit... though you might....

Our first daughter's heart rate dropped through the floor midway through what had been a pretty routine delivery. Trapped umbilical cord. They pushed the Big Red Button and the missus was getting sliced open in theatre within what felt like a few minutes.

Pretty glad I didn't have to attempt that myself at home with a rusty Stanley knife and a Haynes manual. So for that reason am oot.

But each to their own. Best of luck to all of you.

Have you considered the paddling pool at your local leisure centre?
It's heated and only a couple of quid entry.
Win win.

Is it worth getting shirty over a professional title...? My wife's a nurse but wouldn't give a monkeys if one of the patients or one of their family members mistook her for a healthcare assistant. It's all about giving good care regardless of the title surely...?

Just to pitch up with a positive view, we've had 3 kids, last 2 were at home with a (bought) water bath.

As per others we had 2 midwives for the actual birth, the bath took ages to fill but was a god send for pain (apparently!) and the whole process was wonderful.

1st time around we were 5 mins from the obs unit, 2nd time we were further but were more confident.

It's a very special feeling for your kids to wake up in the morning and find they have a new brother or sister in the house.

We bought a bath as we thought it would get more than one use - I cleaned up and it wasn't that bad really!

Since then it's been in the loft!

Does no one sell an aftermarket kit for converting an old birthing pool into a hot tub?

Seems like a missed opportunity 😀

geoffj - its the hospital that decide how many staff are present at home births so having two is hardly indulgence is it. Very odd thing to say. It may well be due to hours worked as the first was there on her own for 2-3 hours having been called out at 3am. Damn site cheaper for the NHS as well and gives the mother better rest than being on a maternity ward.

Well lets hang on a little bit here. It matters not who decides how many midwives are present. Having 2 midwives at your house for the duration of the sharp end of labour means that they are not attending to others. When our second came along, the midwife was popping in and checking on her (at the sharp end of labour) every couple of minutes or so whilst also checking in on other soon to be mothers in the delivery suite. They can't do that if they are eating you out of biscuits at your house. You do the math(s).

[b]Damn site cheaper for the NHS[/b]

Maybe, if suitable facilities didn't already exist, but this always going to be an additional cost until all babies are born at home.

Natrix - Surely not the placenta but the membranes?

You are correct, not the placenta, it was the amniotic sac.

bruneep / geoffj

If you had actually read my first post you would have noted the bit where we were encouraged to have a home birth by the midwife. The fact that we had two for a couple of hours as they crossed over what I assumed to be shift patterns is hardly our fault. It was (we were told) the policy at our NHS trust to encourage home births as only 3-4% were currently delivered that way. Now we all (mostly I think) respect NHS staff and would prefer that they had a greater say in budgetary matters than pen pushing administrators. If those staff then decide that two midwives should be present rather than just one then I wouldn't be arrogant enough to think I know better than them. We had the 2 midwives between 17 women experience the first time, the quality of care was patchy at best and if another woman had gone into labour at the same time as my OH I dare say I would have ended up at the business end with a pair of goalkeeping gloves! Just because we exercised an option that was available to us doesn't make it indulgent or indeed Utopian! Go back to your Daily Mail.

cb

I'm not accusing you of being indulgent. My point about the economics of having midwives attending home births vs covering more births in a labour suite still stands irrespective of who decides how resources are allocated. In the current financial climate within the nhs it's hard to understand how these kinds of decisions can be justified.

Like I say, indulgent IMHO.

And just because I take a different view from you doesn't mean I read the Daily Mail.

geoffj - fair enough on the Daily Mail - that was more aimed at bruneep who seems to think that having an alternative view on the world to him makes me a hippy!

The use of the word indulgent still shows naivety IMHO. If the maternity ward was rammed and there was a shortage of midwives, there is no way that they would have sent them out to a home birth. Instead we would have been told to get our arses down to the hospital. So in summary, we got a better experience, the midwives ate biscuits and we still disagree!

Looking up the word 'indulgent' in the thesaurus show alternatives such as lenient, tolerant, generous, non-judgemental and understanding. There's a bit of irony for you.

EDIT - it was also 6 years ago so perhaps the economics thing hadn't hit home at the time...

My other half is a midwife and may have some informative views on this.. I'll ask her when she gets in..

From a personal viewpoint though, we weren't interested in having our kids born into a lukewarm pool of grot..
It seems like a really romantic idea, until you consider the mind boggling amount of blood, faeces, amniotic fluid and other gore that accompanies a birth.. It's a grim soup for mother and newborn child whatever way you look at it..

What Geoff says +1

CBA with this now, my last words and mrs B reaction to this, how many midwives would we need to allow say 80-90% home births? 1000's more across UK who will pay for that?

This midwife that encouraged you to have at home was she a community midwife, with no real grasp of what the wards are like?

Yes having 2 at your home is indulgent and utopian IMHO as it takes staff away from those in hospital. My wife can go constantly a whole shift without breaks as the are so short on the wards, to take more away from there to sit in people's homes suppin tea and eating biscuits doesn't make sense to me. But I'm sure your NHS trust must has have it covered with extra midwives so that everyone can have 2:1 care.

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Having read a few posts on here my first bit of advice is take it with a pinch of salt. We have done water births with all 3 of our kids, all at home. Even the first for those who are in shock and awe!

It is the best thing you will ever do, is not dangerous, and does not put your baby at any risk whatsoever. It does in fact give you a much better chance of having no intervention and the baby and mother the best start in life.

For the record, for our second we had to be transferred into hospital as there were some complications with an arm not in the right position and then he flipped back to back and the Mrs was getting tired. For the record, it was the most relaxed time, no rush and we got into hospital just fine and she delivered 1hr later with a little help!

Oh, and as for kit, hire it - seriously don't want to be bothering with cleaning that crap up and storing it afterwards!

I'm not accusing you of being indulgent. My point about the economics of having midwives attending home births vs covering more births in a labour suite still stands irrespective of who decides how resources are allocated. In the current financial climate within the nhs it's hard to understand how these kinds of decisions can be justified.

We spoke to midwifes about this and the research shows that it costs way way less to have additional midwifes to cover homebirths than it does to process a mother and baby through a hospital - the various rooms, usually doctors, usually more expensive pain meds etc etc far out way the additional outlay of having more midwifes.

We spoke to midwifes about this and the research shows that it costs way way less to have additional midwifes to cover homebirths than it does to process a mother and baby through a hospital - the various rooms, usually doctors, usually more expensive pain meds etc etc far out way the additional outlay of having more midwifes.

I'm really not sure about this; you have to remember that (even though the intervention rate is higher for hospital births) the majority of hospital births have little input from obstetric medical staff, and for uncomplicated hospital births one midwife can look after multiple mothers at the same time (unless epidurals etc enter into the equation in which case it's 1:1). And the pain meds are all many years off patent and very cheap.

I suspect any cost 'savings' are based on said mother and child not clogging up a hospital bed after the birth, rather than costs at the actual moment of head popping out.

The only tip the midwife gave us if we were considering a water birth (we didn't as it happened, thankfully similar sorry to others as intervention was required) was if you're going to 'pop' into the tank with her then keep your trunks on.

Apparently one guy got a bit carried away with the moment and removed a few too many garments and realised afterwards he was standing slightly awkwardly in a water pool with nowt on...

Waiting rooms, delivery rooms, recovery rooms, all carry a huge overhead rate. If you had everyone who did a home birth stop and go to hospital you would have to build bigger hospitals.

Even if obstetrics, anaesthtists, paedaetricians (pls excuse spelling off all thouse) etc aren't always required, they still have to have a certain number of those skills to cover the patients in the hospital.

Take into account that you are something like 4 times more likely to have a C-section if you have a hospital birth rather than a home birth the costs start to really escalate.

I suspect any cost 'savings' are based on said mother and child not clogging up a hospital bed after the birth, rather than costs at the actual moment of head popping out.

That may well be true; the 'hotel' costs of keeping someone in hospital are quite steep, even before you actually do anything with the patient. IIRC a C-section means a minimum of two nights in; however some places will discharge an uncomplicated delivery at 4h.

Even if obstetrics, anaesthtists, paedaetricians (pls excuse spelling off all thouse) etc aren't always required, they still have to have a certain number of those skills to cover the patients in the hospital.

They're still required often enough, and don't imagine that anaesthetics and paeds are solely there to cover Labour Ward - they will have plenty of other stuff to keep them occupied.