Home birth pool recommendations

[OrangeMochaFrappucino]

That's it really! I had a water birth in my lovely local MLU last time around and really want another so considering hiring a pool as there are only two at the MLU so you never know if you will get one.

Have been researching and very tempted by the deluxe options of heated filtered pools but at nearly £300 they are out of budget.

So can anyone recommend a good pool that is a bit cheaper and answer my questions?

Do the inflatable ones offer enough support to lean against the sides?
How long do they take to fill?
Is it difficult keeping the temperature consistent?
Are they hard to set up?

I only had a 5.5hr labour last time so not even sure we will have time to sort the pool out if this one's goes quicker! But am nearly 31 weeks now so think that if I'm going to go ahead, I need to sort out the hire soon.

Thanks for any advice!

[Seff]

Not a recommendation as such, as I haven't used this company, but here is a link to a company hiring out inflatable birth pools for £90 for 5 weeks.

www.waterbabybirthingpoolhire.co.uk/default.html

I'm sure if you contacted the site above they would be able to answer your questions, but I'll be waiting here to see if anyone here can give you answers too!

I'm planning on buying one, I hit 37 weeks on Wednesday and can stay home from then so I need to be getting on with it!

Good luck

[fivepies]

This may not be so helpful for you, but when we were in the same position we ended up paying for a heated pool. We got it from here:
www.babylovebirthingpools.co.uk/. They were great, flexible with delivery and pick up. Very clean equipment, set it up easily ourselves.
If you have quick labours you might not have much time to fill a pool.
We got the inflatable heated pool and used it for the whole 5 weeks (went 2weeks overdue) as a hot tub, very relaxing. Room for myself, DH and DD1! The midwifes loved it as they like the stable sides. They said that with the cheaper ones the sides aren't strong enough and that they end up soaking wet.

[HermioneWeasley]

Bought an inflatable one for about £80. It was study enough to lean against but because the pressure of the water pushed the sides out the liner didn't really fit. We use it as huge and brilliant paddling pool in the summer now. You need an electric pump to inflate it and a submersible pump to empty it.

Filling is in theory done with a hose connection to your tap, but on the day I couldn't get it to attach (though I had practiced!) so just filled it with jugs, kettles ETs. Took about an hour! Kept it topped up with more kettles to keep the temp right. Was useful to have 2 kettles.

[OrangeMochaFrappucino]

Thanks - I'll check out all the links!

[MatildasCat]

I'm 38 weeks pregnant with DC2 and I've hired one of the birth pool in the box inflatable ones. Like you, I really liked the idea of the ones that you just set up and they stay heated. But we don't really have the room to leave one up for weeks on end.

We've inflated the pool to check it all works ok. Obviously I can't comment properly as I haven't gone into labour yet, but I was really impressed with how rigid the sides were. It was easy to set up. Apparently it only loses 1 degree of heat every 3 hours so should keep it's heat ok.

Hopefully I'll be able to report back in the next few weeks on how it worked in reality!