For those who have had home water births... how do you heat the water and keep it at the right temperature?

[Boobz]

Probably a silly question with an obvious answer, but my DH and I have been wondering about this. We have an inflatable pool (which I won online - woop!) and can fill it with hot water from the tap through a hose... but what happens as the water cools (given I could be in there for a while...). Surely you can't just keep adding hot water from the tap as you'd over fill it - do you have to start bailing out the water when it starts to cool down so you can add more hot water again? If so, do you do this with a pump?

Or do I buy some kind of heater thing that goes under the water and maintains the temp at the correct level (like a fish tank?)

Have googled the practicalities but it's only coming up with the right temp to be at, and combi boilers etc, rather than the actual practicalities of keeping it the right temp through hours of labour...

Thought it would be quicker just to ask the oracle that is MN.

TIA.

Boobz xxx

[TheProvincialLady]

I had a home water birth 2 weeks ago in a birth pool in a box. DH left the hose in the pool and topped up with hot water as necessary, but also had a big bucket handy to remove cool water...he never needed to though.

A pool loses about 1 degree per hour, which is not that much really. And a home birth probably won't take hours and hours. Is this your first birth?

In our case DH took ages to set the pool up so I was only in it for about 1.5 hours!

[Boobz]

Yes it is - but that all sounds reasonable and not like too much hassle, so thank you for the quick response!

How was your birth?

[TheProvincialLady]

A piece of cake 5 hours start to finish and only really painful for the last few minutes. The pool helped a lot. It couldn't have been more different than my first birth, which was in hospital and did take forever. I think you are wise to start as you mean to go on - I wish I had planned a home birth for DS1. Good luck

[SnowOfHands]

We filled ours at 11am, left the hose in and topped up twice. Couple of buckets of cold taken out each time. I got out at about 4pm.

[Boobz]

Great Provincial - pleased to hear it went well!

Thanks Snow - seems like there's nothing too it - DH is relieved.

xxx

[Howdie]

I also used Birth Pool in a Box.

Filled pool with all hot water at 0600 and put on the heat retention cover. Got into the pool at 12.00 midday and the water was much too hot so we had to take a couple of buckets out and add some cold. Same works in reverse for the pool getting cool. Take a couple of bucketsfull out and add more hot. It really is no hassle at all.