Home water birth - where in the house?

[jennimoo]

I'm planning on having a homebirth, and have booked a birth pool, subject to the MW OKing it at the 36 week appointment next week.

Originally we were planning on having baby downstairs in the living room, as there is loads of room down there, however the toilet (antenatal teacher said I should be peeing every hour...), shower and bed for afterwards are all upstairs so we are now thinking about using the spare room.

It is a relatively new house and a small pool so I don't think that the weight of the pool is an issue. DH suggested we get one of those camping type toilets (basically a seat on a bucket) and stick with downstairs, but I really don't fancy this.

Any one have any thoughts as to where might be best?

I'm planning on having the pool in the diner part of our kitchen-diner. But we have a downstairs loo - I have considered that there's not much room in the loo if I need help getting there, but there isn't room upstairs for the pool.

Once you're in the pool you can pee in the pool.

Going up and down the stairs is good for mobility and encouraging the baby to move down. It also gives you a nice change of position etc and can help stimulate labour if it has stalled at all.

You'll be fine and as long as you pee every couple of hours you'll be okay.

Congratulations!

i gave birth downstairs both times because it's the only place the birth pool would fit

we do have a downstairs loo, but tbh i have never needed to use the toilet at all during any of my 3 labours, so it wasn't an issue anyway for me

if you have the space upstairs and would feel more comfortable being on one level and close to everything then do that!

We had the pool in the diner part of our kitchen too. It was close to the sink and kettle for adding water, and made it easy for me to get food and drink.

We do have a downstairs loo but I ended up using the one in the upstairs bathroom more because tramping up and downstairs actually really helped with the contractions.

Would it be easy to fill and empty the pool in your spare room?

Same as you we have no downstairs loo.
We opted for the pool living room as it would have been a real squeeze anywhere else and the midwives would not have been happy.
We managed to get hold of a comode (basically just a neat little chair with a toilet seat and bucket underneath the seat) which we set up next to the pool. I was really glad of it and was getting out to use it every 3 or so contractions. I'd sit, have a contraction on the toilet and then get back in the pool.
Even that little distance would've been helpful in keeping contractions going. I was influenced by the Mongan hypnobirthing book which advised keeping bladder and bowels as empty as possible during labour so as not to inhibit yourself during contractions. TMI alert: I was constipated, so was doing little bits of poo at a lot of the contractions - in the pool I inhibited this by sitting firmly on my bum, whereas on the comode I could let it all out, so to speak.

For you I would say if you think the midwives would be happy enough with your spare room then go for that. You might even find it cosier than the living room. And if it's not suitable, then get a comode or similar just in case you really find you need it (hide it in another room or cupboard), but plan not to use it but to travel upstairs to the loo instead in necessary.

It would be easy to fill/empty in the spare room, as it's next to the bathroom.

It is a small double room but does have a fairly large sofa bed in there. We've only booked the small 'birth pool in a box' so I reckon there should be enough room but it's so hard to judge.

Thanks for all the ideas, will have a think!

Honestly, I didnt need to pee much at all during either labour with my DC. Dont let that put you off giving birth wherever you feel most comfortable in your house.

I had a small BPIAB too - was amazed how big it looked when inflated! Hopefully it will be fine for you...

i had to come back to this as i just thought you might want to double check if the pool is ok upstairs

we've been looking at big fishtanks and a lot of them come with warnings not to put them upstairs!
even a small birth pool is going to take a LOT of water and will be very, very heavy

it's definitely worth checking- tho how you would check i have no idea!

I am fairly sure the pool will be ok, but without shelling out for a structural engineer I can't think of a way to be 100% sure! I have checked the filled weight of the pool, and it is 8-10 peoples worth of weight, which I reckon spread over the area in the corner of a room seems likely to be fine...

I am having a home water birth, and the only thing I would thinking about, is what thisisyesterday says. My downstairs is concrete under the laminate so I know that will be fine. I used to have a big fish tank and had to be very carefull where it was put in my old house making sure it was evenly placed over two floorboards etc. And that was a downstairs flat too. Do not underestimate the weight of water and if you really do want it upstairs, please get someone in to check the floors can cope with it.

I didn't get out of my pool to go to the loo at all, but then I was only in it for the last hour or so. I had it downstairs in the diner part of kitchen-diner, next to patio doors which made emptying into an outside drain v easy for DH. Getting upstairs for a bath and to get into bed afterwards was not difficult, even after stitches.

Good luck!

I would say if you are having your pool upstairs, you will have to seriously consider having some sort of structural pole/support put downstairs to support your pool. The pool will be vvv heavy, and the last thing you want/need is your ceiling falling through (with/without you in it!)...

This question was a topic in the uk.d-i-y newsgroup a couple of years ago. Here's a link to the google archive:

groups.google.co.uk/group/uk.d-i-y/browse_thread/thread/422c0469a8abf275/2579dee88761c8a3?hl=en&q=birth+pool+upstairs&lnk=ol&

BUT: that thread quickly went into arguments about home births, so don't read beyond the first page. The most useful posts were the initial one by oblong, and the replies from joker7 and John Stumbles.

I had DS2 in the BPIAB in our dining room. We have a downstairs loo but I didn't really use it. To avoid getting in and out and trailing water everywhere, I just kinda stood up and peed in a plastic container. By the time things got really going, I didn't really care that I was doing it in the pool. My friend had to sieve out some more solid stuff but hey that's what friends are for!

I really think you'd be better off downstairs with the significant weight of the pool. It doesn't seem worth the hassle just for the sake of having a loo closeby.

We were told to have it downstairs for safety and space reasons and like others I didn't need the toilet once after getting in. I'd been on the loo a`lot to start with in early labour and was running empty ecxept water therafter! Plus was sweating a lot so urinating was less necessary.

Copied from the homebirth reference site:

"Lots of people worry about this, and to cover their backs, the pool hire companies may advise you to get a report from a structural engineer. In real life, I doubt if anyone ever bothers with this! I have never yet heard of anyone having problems with a collapsing pool! Even the heaviest birth pool, when full of water and labouring woman, weighs only the same as 10-12 adults; would you have a party with that number of people standing in the place you are considering putting the pool?

Some parts of your floors are stronger than others. Floors on ground level are of course generally very strong. If you have a solid floor on a concrete base then you have no worries. If you have a suspended timber floor, where there are joists and floorboards, then downstairs floors may still have problems. Note that sometimes a tiled floor is laid over a suspended wooden floor. The strongest areas are in a corner, in a bay window, or above a supporting wall. It is certainly worth investigating all your options for siting a pool, before discounting it on the grounds that you think it might be too heavy for the floor. Discuss it with the pool hire companies which you are considering using. Some pools are considerably smaller and lighter than others."

Well I had a home birth in a pool and I put mine down stairs with the WC upstairs.
With the good experience that i had i would say the most important thing is to have the pool in the room you will be most relaxed and comfortable.
I was getting around fine in late pregnancy so in the early stages of labour getting up the stairs was not a problem. To be honest in the later stages I could not move to turn around never mind get up stair or even out the pool and I found I could not pee right at the end. I did manage to get out the pool at one point to pee and I peed in a bucket you may find by that stage you are not to worried about peeing in a bucket, I worried about the same thing as you but once the time came I was past the point of caring about peeing in a bucket.
Best of Luck

I would be really careful about putting a birth pool upstairs, especially if the room is carpeted. My birth pool leaked all over the dining room and literally flooded the room. If this had happened upstairs it would have come through the ceiling. We had tarpaulin down and this still didn't stop it. It was very stressful at the time!