Do I want a TENS?

[BahSaidPaschaHumbug]

Booked for homebirth, have a pool ready to go, last time g&a did the job pretty much. Everybody I know is ordering theirs to hire. Are they really that great?

I had one 2 weeks ago at my home birth, no pool though! Tens was Fab! Kept me going until pushing stage then I used gas and air.

I loved mine! I hired a baby tens and it was the only thing I used as pain relief to push my mahoosive headed baby out.

It didn't make much difference for me. Found out later at hospital that baby was back to back so maybe that's why. But the contractions timing feature was good and pressing the button gave me something to focus on.

I didn't find it that great with DC1, not bothered this time.
One thing to note though- you won't be able to use in the pool so if you're planning a waterbirth you might be wasting your money!

Soz, mine wasn't a baby tens. Just remembered it was an elle tens.

Mine was brilliant. I was a bit slow dialating to 4 cm when they would give me the good drugs and it got me through from 3am to midnight, when I started alternating with bath and tens.

I didn't realise how good it was until they took it off for me to get into the water!

Thanks everyone. The pool and tens use is a good point. If I knew there was no chance for water I might hire one but since i'm really hoping for the pool I think it the tens will be redundant.

On balance I think I'll leave it.

I really wanted a pool as well though and although we had it all inflated in advance, we never got it filled in time.

Yes i'm slightly nervous about that given my first labour was only 7 hours in total. However, the pool was loaned and we've paid for a new liner and stuff for it so we will just go for it the moment I feel a slight twinge...

You can use the TENS in early labour before you get in the pool, which is what I did for DS1. With DS2 I had an unplanned home birth and all I had was the TENS.

It's very much a marmite thing - you either love it or think it's useless!