I'm going for a water birth, but what about the whole poo issue? My widwife says it's quite amusing and you don't really care about it at the time, but my DH isn't convinced. I think he's worried he'll be given sieve duty!

Can you ask for an enema? Or any tips to avoid the dreaded floaters (or I suppose, depending on what you eat, sinkers!)

I don't like the poo bit either. You'd think I'd be ok with it by now having had four home births but I don't like it.

I often wondered about an enema. Women used to have it routinely. It would certainly be tidier and might help keep the illusion of romance for a bit longer,

PMSL at the image of 'floaters' in the water birth tub.

I honestly couldn't tell you if I pooed or not, but the birth was great.

I tried to have a waterbirth and in all honesty I was pertrified during it that I was going to poo and it kinda stopped me letting nature take its course.
Someone said that sometimes the body "clears the system" before labour and this can sometimes be the first symptom of labour, didn't happen with me.

I haven't yet dared to ask my dh if i crapped myself giving birth......

I poo'ed both times but to be honest I had such great births that it was worth it.. can't imagine pooing on the bed or onto the floor any less embarrassing.

I did have a big clear out before labour with both of mine thankfully. I thought that I hadn't poo'd at all until I saw the photo's of the birth and was a little worried to see small bits of poo at the bottom of the pool. I guess that makes them sinkers

My body 'cleared the system' in my first labour - not pretty and went on for aaaaages, but I can say with 100% certainty that I didn't deliver anything other than a baby once we got to hospital

I think the midwives will be pretty matter of fact about any floaters/sinkers and should scoop them out before you notice!

At least if you poo in the pool no one can smell it, if you poo on the bed it is not very pleasant.

Good point maxbear , never thought it about it that way!

you probably won't know unless you ask
they are pretty nippy with the sieve I hear

When you are going through partic. agonising push, close your eyes for a minute or so.
Hopefully by the time you have opened them, mW will have been quick off the mark with rogue floater(s) and you will be none the wiser.

I've just run this by dh and he says the poo fearers amongst us must accept their bestiality.

He likes it when the poo comes because he knows the head will follow soon after. It means we're on the home straight or 'game on' as he puts it.

I don't know how people can ^not remember^ whether or not they poo'd. I could feel then smell it every time.

TMI?

Yes

'He likes it when the poo comes'

Dear God, good job(by) you are a regular or you would have had your ass drummed out of town sooo fast, lady!

oh I didn't know wtf was happening
I asked dp afterwards and he said "oh loads of stuff came out - they just kept sweeping everything into a bucket"

Moondog.

I remember DH and the MW's using wipes on my big fat cow arse. It was mortifying even in my bovine deep birthing state.

Ooh ,am cringeing for you Spider.
(I read the Torygraph in the birthing pool and discussed learning Welsh as adult in final stages with MW. Moi? An uptight control freak? Not really. )

To avoid the shark attack in the toilet look......apparently you can ask for a glucose sepository which will sort you out. Alternatively you can just not worry about it and rest in the knowledge that it doesn't smell in the water and that you won't care anyway.

At our antenatal class with the midwives at the birthing centre, they made a huge point of saying that you're bowel is like a toothpaste tube and as the baby descends then anything that's in it will come out and that's just how it is. Everyone had a titter but DH was then fully expecting it and was under the impression that it happened more than it didn't. Thankfully.

LOL @ reading the Telegraph in the pool.

I never had a pool. One arrived for me once ten minutes after ds3 had made his appearance.

No. I was braying like a donkey and doing a wild, tribal dance, my trance only broken to express imminent poo mortification to my collective assistants.

thankyouandgoodnight I had the toothpaste tube talk too. Quite a vivid image isn't it?

If you're a dry lander, do you end up with poo all down your legs??

No you shouldn't. I make sure my helpers catch it as it squeezes out the neck of the tube if you will. Wipes at the ready.

Either way, it is really undigifying! Dreadful - I wouldn't care if it was just the midwives I don't think - I really don't enjoy DH seeing me in that state!

Noooooo please dont anyone ask for an enema,when dd1 and ds1 were born it was normal to give every women in labour an enema,maybe im a wuss or had sadistic midwives but they were horific,worse than the birth and ive had 3 with no pain relief and they really leave you with no dignity,I know you dont care about that at the end,but its very important when in early labour.
By the time I had ds 2 I was confident enough to say no way are you putting that up where I think you mean too,and by ds3 they had stopped doing it

Well I didn't poo in labour but towards the end, insisted I needed to poo, leapt off the bed trailing monitor wires.... and waters broke all over the floor. So actually I may have shat in the wheelchair that was immediately produced to hurtle me to the delivery room, but can't remember.

I do remember DH trotting off to get the sieve and me growling *leave it* in an extremely threatening voice.

OMG, all this is confirming that I've made the right choice having a water birth! The whole business with the wipes on dry land... never thought about that the enema might be worse than the birth!! I guess I'll just have to tell my DH to get over it. I have to put up with extremely smelly farts, after all...

You can't avoid them. You just have to go with it. The fact they tell you to bring a seive kind of told me everyone does it. And my midwife was very very discreet bless her. The only bit really was when the MW asked us if we wanted our seive back and DH and I both hesitated (not really understanding what she meant being a bit busy with newborn dd) before twigging and practically shouting ooh no thank you. It is fine to bin that.
DD2 was born on land (induced) and again poo was very very discreetly cleared away. They only told me when I asked and insisted on being told (I just pooed didn't I? I did, I know I did? Did I did I? I did! Told you. In between contractions.) I needed to prove I still had some control ie I knew I had pooed even if I couldn't help it. Don't think it smelled though, but perhaps they were that quick I didn't know.

lol at thoguht of having sieve pack.
Making cakes would never be quite the same eh?

Also liking idea od babies born 'on landd.

I certainly knew about it, I felt it.

You can use an eneama in the earlier stages of labour - you can buy small ones that you can administer yourself without anyone knowing.

Apart from the person flogging it to you who would be thinking 'Aha, another pregnanant woman paranoid about shitting everywhere.'

well it worked for me, and made labour more comfortable without feeling constipated.

And I'm sure that pharmacists don't think anything much while selling embarrassing things. They are used to it.

This subject came up at a friend's house today and my friend said she asked excitedly "is that the baby's head??"

her dh and the midwife kind of looked at each other

My MW wiping my arse whilst I was contracting on the toilet was far more embarrassing than sieving the pool whilst contracting - I had the lights dimmed at this stage, can highly recommend this course of action for anyone remotely concerned about poo in the pool (or anywhere for that matter!).

But what if you're pushing so hard that it, um, isn't solid any more. Because that's what happened to me with DD's birth. I was just pushing so hard. As it was, it went down DH's legs (he was holding me in supported squat). In the pool... well, it doesn't bear thinking about really, does it?

very interesting thread

my local hospital will have a birthing pool in the next few weeks and i'm very up for trying...mind you thought that first time round when i was at a hospital that had one but someone was in...

was discussing this yesterday with friends and they reckoned the poo issue was enough to put them off...i'd never even considered this.

I was more concerned about farting. I was induced on the Monday morning, and DS wasn't born til Tuesday night. All the meals I'd been given in hospital contained sprouts, turnip, beans or other farty foods. I was permanently hungry so I devoured every morsel.
When DP went to the toilet, leaving me & the midwife alone in the delivery room, I apologised in advance in case I farted in her face. She just laughed and said not to worry as they're used to it.
I can't remember if I did fart, or even poo. I just remember telling the midwife at one point, through a haze of gas & air, that I thought my bum was going to explode .

FrannyandZooey can I just say that both your posts above made me p(as in urine) myself laughing.

I've had a dry land and a water birth. Pooed on both occasions. It was really the least of my worries and there was a long list of things that I did vying for the title of "most undignified".

DS did a poo during a nappy change on one occasion and I remarked to Dh that it was the first time I had actually seen poo coming out of another person's bottom (although God knows I must have wiped up kilos of the stuff in the past 5 years). He quietly responded that of course he has witnessed same twice.

I do always (bizarrely) insist on having a bikini wax a week or so before I am due. Nothing along the brazilian lines - just a tidy up given that more people than usual will be gazing in that direction...

this thread is so funny - Miriam Stoppard never tells you this in her books does she?

There is a school of thought that exposrue to the mother's poo during birth is healthy for the baby. Not just the bacteria, but also that there is Vitamin K in the pooo, which the baby needs of course.

I pooed in the birthing pool with my 3rd dc (pretty sure I didn't poo during the first and second birhts) and felt it was damn unfair as I had pooed at least 4 times that day and though my system was completely cleared out!

BTW, if you don't want him to see you pooing, make sure he stands at your head end.

I definitely did, I was leaning over the bedhead with DH on the other side so he didn't have to know - big push, felt the midwives press a huge pad of paper towel to my bum and did an enormous poo. Luckily solid. DD arrived a second later.

I felt a bit but it was nowhere near as bad as when they were stitching me up afterwards and left me on the bed in stirrups for about 20 mins while they found everything and blood was everywhere [bleurgh emoticon]

I was telling my friends who don't have kids about all the hilarious responses to this thread... and they just looked a bit shocked. Thanks to all of you, I think I've overcome my poo paranoia. Though I think dimming the lights and making sure the DH stays well and truly away from the bottom end action are rather strokes of genius.

I was telling my friends who don't have kids about all the hilarious responses to this thread... and they just looked a bit shocked. Thanks to all of you, I think I've overcome my poo paranoia. Though I think dimming the lights and making sure the DH stays well and truly away from the bottom end action are rather strokes of genius.

don't know why that posted twice...

Spidermama - I like the cut of your jib....!

Nearly five years on from DS2's chaotic, scary but ultimately fantastic homebirth (chain of events: baby stuck - shoulder dystocia, midwife falls backwards off the bed onto her arse trying to free him, bed base collapses), I still occasionally run my fingers over the poo stains on my hand stitched Turkish quilt - little reminders of that happy day.......

A precious and vivid reminder of those unworldly hours.

bluenoser I always found dh was needed at the top end. I needed his shoulders for something to dig into at the height of contractions. His rugby experience stood in in good stead.

I wonder if the visibility of the stains five years (and several dry cleans) on, is connected to the huge jungle curry I'd eaten the day before the birth in a desperate attempt to bring the pregnancy to a hasty end......

I had to throw the dressing gown that I part laboured in away as I couldn't remove the rather lurid poo stains from it!

So it's not just me and my radioactive bowels then!

I'd just like to say this is THE most entertaining thread I have read here.

Thanks ladies!

I didn't poo in any of my four births AFAIK but almost wish I had, so I could join in.

Haven't laughed so much in ages.

FWIW I'm really not entirely sure if I pooed or not... no smell and had a blanket over my legs so no visuals on anything. DH up at the head end, but if I did it must have been wipped away fairly quickly....

I'm sure my hospital gave you something to stop you pooing when you were admitted... but I just swallowed whatever it was without asking so not really sure.

This is the most vivid and graphic and detailed thread I've ever read (apart from my own). So informative.

Am really gonna go for a water birth, dimmed lights and dh with cigar outside with my Dad while my Mum and I are sweating it out.

The stuff on here is hilarious!!

Are the cigars to cover up the smell ??

I knew I'd done one when my partner lurched away from the bed gagging

Love the name

PMSL soooo much

I'm a pooer too, though a dry-lander, so not an expert on floaters. I'm just praying that the woman who's dh wants her to have an elective c/s doesn't read this thread, she might change her mind about the water birth

OH-NO, you're here!!!!

I was talking to the birthpool people the other day and they well selling the pool on the basis that 'the colour is dark, things floating in the water are less obvious' (I was asking whether I may as well just use my (very large and deep) bathtub instead).

Lizzer, that's me! And dh

No no no darling, I'm so gonna go for the water birth. At least no smell, a quick sieve and lift et voila

The other option would be to give birth kneeling on all fours and I can vividly picture the poo scene (urgh) and would rather be in the water.

This thread is soooo funny. I was a dry lander for ds1 and don't dare ask DH if I poo'ed or not. I don't think I did but would hate to have this illusion shattered.

When I was with my sister during her delivery , she pooed herself.

I laughed

She laughed becuase it fell on the floor and I stepped in it

I laughed becuase I had borrowed her shoes as we ran out of the door

This thread has me chuckling away!! Thanks ladies :P