Renting a birthing pool

[rumtumtugger]

I'm hoping for a homebirth and have been advised to hire a birthing pool. I have a few questions around this...

1. Where can I rent one from? How can I ensure that it works on the day and won't be faulty/deflate?!
2. How can I be sure it's hygienic? What do liners do and how can I be sure be was previously used?
3. How big are they? Big enough for DH to get in as well?
4. How do you keep the water in them warm and at a constant temperature? I get cold v easily!
5. Do I need to buy a special hose to fill them?

Thanks!

I rented a birth pool in a box from Water Baby birthing pool hire. Was something like £80 for 6 wks, I think. Highly recommend them - it comes with everything you need, including hoses, pump, and a fresh liner.

There are different size pools, check dimensions online. We used a standard size as we live in a teeny flat, if we had more space I would have hired the larger one so I could have stretched out a bit more in it. We kept temp constant by topping up with hot from tap during labour. It actually loses heat quite slowly, but it helps if you have an other half or birth partner who'll be on the ball about this

You can also rent fancy ones that have filtration systems and heaters to regulate temp, but they're far more expensive, as you'd expect...

Sorry to hijack thread but thanks for the suggestion CityDweller was hoping to have a home water birth but all the sites I came across were too expensive to hire, so had a look on the Water baby site and have just reserved a pool! £90 for 5 weeks hire, free delivery and collection plus all the necessary accessories is brilliant! Thanks again!

Ooh great, I will have a look now, thanks!

And you can extend the hire for 2 wks if you go past dates (as I did) at no extra cost!