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Childbirth

Share experiences and get support around labour, birth and recovery.

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Original poster

Birthing pool - Advice pls

8 replies

k4mi · 07/12/2011 09:54

Hi all,

We are having a home water birth, this is first baby so no idea what we're doing obviously! My midwife team can lend a 'rigid' pool but it won't be available until around the due date or even when we go into labour due to it being booked up. Also we have to pay for a liner anyway which they charge £60 for.

So OH thinks we should buy / hire one because we'd like to have it set up at least a week in advance (EDD 17/01).

I have seen there are lots of different types, rigid, blow up, with 'anchors', heated, non heated etc. Can anyone advise on what tends to be best. I don't mind spending up to about £80 either to hire or maybe more if we could then sell it on afterwards. My sister in-law also needs one in April so i might be able to slit cost of buying with her.

I know it will come down to personal choice but for me the most important things (i think) will be:

Enough room for OH to get in
Warm enough (it is January!)
Something to push against / hold on to in some way
Making it comfy under my knees as i seem to have pain when doing yoga on all fours let alone birth

All advice welcome!

OP posts:

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Flisspaps · 07/12/2011 10:08

I am planning on hiring one of these

Have never used one so no advice, I am simply going for one that is cheap and has a pump to get the water out!

Secondtimelucky · 07/12/2011 10:47

I think that a big consideration is how much room you have in your house. Do you really have space for a birth pool to potentially be set up for about three weeks (i.e. a week before until a fortnight overdue)?

I have a small house, so I had an inflatable birth pool. It was great because we set it up when my contractions started. It doesn't have a facility to keep the water warm, but I wasn't in very long. I think if you are, you just keep removing bucketfuls of water and adding more hot.

I think the solid ones tend to be the ones that have the facility to keep the water warm, but are a more complicated to assemble, and take longer, so you do need to set them up in advance. They also always look a bit hard to me, but I've never used one so don't know. My pool had a big deep inflatable base, so was really kind on the knees.

My doula has some links to various brands and info on her website :Hackney Doula here.

SoupDragon · 07/12/2011 10:50

I had a pool from Birth Pool In A Box. Fabulous. I inflated it in early labour which took no time at all and filled it 2/3 with just hot water at that point (I have a combo boiler), put the heat retaining cover on top and then topped it up with cold to bring it to the right temp when I need it.

I would highly recommend it.

Indith · 07/12/2011 10:53

Inflatables are great. Thye take very little time to set up so you don't need to worry about having it done in advance and they sell on pretty well. With a little electric pump they take about 3 min to inflate then filling it depends on your water pressure. The one by Made in Water has handles to hold. Both it and the Birth Pool in a Box have an inflatable floor too so it is nice and soft and in both the sides are firm enough to lean on.

The water stays the right temp for quite a long time. Dd was born in water last Dec in a pretty cold house and I didn't have to top up the water temp at all once the pool was filled.

An inflatable pool, pump and hose costs around £100. If you can get one second hand off ebay or something then a sterile liner and a new hose (so you know everything is nice and clean) will set you back around £30.

Tangle · 07/12/2011 12:24

When you say you want it set up at least 7 days in advance of your EDD, how "set up" do you have in mind? My understanding tends to be that the time required to inflate a Birth-Pool-In-a-Box style pool is minutes, but that filling it can take a while depending on your hot water system. If you want it set up and full for a week then you really need to get a pool with a heating/filtration system.

When expecting DD1 we hired an all-singing all-dancing one and it was lovely to have a massive wallow that I could lounge in as I got to 41 weeks+ and bore a close resemblance to an overweight hippo . One of the reasons was that our mains water pressure is awful and the hot tank isn't huge - I could see a scenario whereby DH would be frantically trying to generate hot water with kettles and pans while I was practically pushing, and by having a pool there ready to go it took that particular stress away for us. But it was big and I'm not sure you'd get one within your budget...

Indith · 07/12/2011 12:42

Do remember that full term is anywhere from 37 to 42 weeks (or more if you are stubborn and refuse induction) so that could be a very long time to have a pool set up!

I wouldn't worry too much about time to fill etc. My labour with dd was 5 hours from first twinge to baby. We couldn't find an adaptor to fit our taps so we couldn't use the hose, dh filled the pool using buckets and it was absolutely fine. I actually left him in bed asleep until contractions racked up a bit and the pool was still ready for me when I was ready to get in it so it really, really doesn't take too long.

You certainly can't get an all singing rigid pool hire for 5 weeks with water filter and heater for £80. It is actually more expensive to hire than it is to buy an inflatable pool.

Catspersonalbanker · 08/12/2011 13:56

I had a Eco Mini pool in a box (inflatable)- they have inflatable floors so will give you comfort for your knees. Took about 20 minutes to get from box and inflated. Not big enough for OH though.
It also has a heat proof cover so you can keep the warm water in. To keep it warm, just one bucket out of cold and one in of hot.

There are handles if you want to hold on but I was drapped over the side. Don't worry about being, warm the MVs will want the house really warm for when the baby is born (about 25 degrees) so you will be warm from this and sweating your backside off in labour anyway. I always found the house cold and in labour couldn't wait to get my clothes off. :) Pool has to be a certain temperature but our old boiler managed this last March.

A bit cheeky I know but I have mine for sale with a new disposable liner on Ebay so if you are interested PM m

Tangle · 08/12/2011 15:07

I wouldn't worry too much about time to fill etc.

I think it all comes down to how well you know your hot water system. At the time, we could just run a small bath to about 37 degrees. At that point water stopped coming out of the taps (other than mains fed) as one of the tanks was empty and it couldn't fill up fast enough to maintain any kind of supply. If we had been trying to fill a birth pool I genuinely think we'd have struggled to get enough water at a decent temperature without waiting for an hour + for the tank to refill and the immersion to heat it up again. That would probably have been fine, but I didn't want to be stressing about it whilst in labour. If we'd wanted a pool that was big enough for two we'd have been looking at 3 to 5 cycles and then time would have started to be an issue.

We were lucky to have the space to fit in a rigid pool for 5 weeks, and very fortunate that we could afford to do so. As it turned out I had a land birth and only spent about 1/2 hour in the pool during labour - but we felt we more than got our money's worth having it available to clamber in as desired during the last few weeks.

What the right pool for you is depends on your circumstances and your priorities - but based on my experience I wouldn't say that having a pool that can be set up in advance is unnecessary for everyone although I can see it may be totally unnecessary for some :)

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