If youv had a home birth what did you use?

[justhayley]

Hiya I'm planing a homebirth - baby due in 5 weeks.
Jut trying to get a list of things together that I will need at home.
What was helpful unhelpful and totally necessary for you?

Thank you

I didn't get much: some old towels, a cheap shower curtain to protect the floor and some straws to make it easy to have a drink without changing position.

All were useful.

I had a pool (small birth pool in a box) that was invaluable for me.

Other than that some plastic sheeting for the floor and a couple of dark towels.

Old towels, something big and waterproof (I robbed that off one of the dcs beds at the last minute) and bit of a cliche but... Biscuits. Me, dh, the midwives. Got through quite a few. That is literally all we needed.

One thing we didn't have that would have been useful was a decent torch (I wasn't expecting to need stitching afterwards having not needed it previously) but I did and the student midwife, who was at her first ever birth, had to provide the light with a child's animal shaped dynamo powered torch! Oops.

I was wondering the same thing, at long last it looks like I'm having a HB (x3 hospital births so far) and there just doesn't seem to be much that I need which is good.

I might get some birth announcement cards in for the neighbors, that way I can announce the birth and apologise for the noise that I am bound to make!

I have also bought potty training mats for me to sit on to protect the bed/furniture, not sure if I will need them or not but that is pretty much what they give you to sit on in hospital.

Ages ago I read that an angle poise lamp can also be handy for the MW in case she needs to do stitches but a torch sounds a bit easier.

I will also add biscuits to the list!!

Bought a pool from eBay, used a mirror and as above, lots of dark towels and some shower curtains from Primark

Thank you, glad there's not much needed.
Iv got a load of old towels - actually they were the towels we've been using but I looked at them yesterday and decided we were in need of some new ones, so bought some nice ones and decided they can be our old birthing towels - only thing is most of them are white. I have a few black ones but they always leave little black towel bits on your body so I never use them. Could have them on the floor I guess.

Will also be getting a pool.
Picked up some clary sage oil yesterday as well. Heard it's great to get things moving in the run up to labour and also during. Won't start using it just yet but once I get to 37 weeks will be burning it and putting in in every bath

Torch is a great idea - would never have thought of that. DP is in the Army so should have some decent ones laying about at work we can use.
I bought a load of straws the other day they were invaluable last time round (hospital birth)

I got a pool for my first planned home birth, which didn't happen because the district midwives were short staffed and I wasn't bothered enough to argue that point so I didn't get to use it. Also we had an immersion heater and the baby would have arrived quite a while before we managed to get enough warm enough water in the pool. Not an issue if you have a good combi boiler I don't think.

Depending on what floor you've got you may want to put down a duvet or something a bit padded to be nicer on your knees/bottom as the bott

...bottoms of the pools are pretty thin and can be uncomfortable.

Otherwise you don't really need much other than what comes with the birth pool kit.

If you use a pool that is!

Good luck

Interesting thread. I'm planning a home birth (but I still have a while to go yet) and I like to be organised. I don't want a pool and don't have room for one anyway so it looks like I'll just need lots of towels and shower curtains! Dh has an industrial strength torch he uses for fixing underneath cars so I won't need to buy a torch... only thing is it's probably strong enough to give me a tan

A cheap sieve to catch any unwanted lumps in the pool
TENS?
Something to wear in the pool if you don't want to be naked.
Big fluffy towelling dressing gown to put on when you get out the pool. It will dry you and keep you warm.
Bucket for the placenta. a good tip is to deliver the placenta in the pool, that way the mess is well contained.

Birth pool kits usually come with the sieve!!

And the midwives round here bring a special pot for the placenta and think they prefer it to be delivered out if the water so they can make sure they check it over properly afterwards...

Other than towels, etc. The things we used this time were very strong torch and a thermometer!

The placenta can easily be examined once it's removed from the pool. It being in the water doesn't cause a problem to the placenta.

I didn't have much time, wasn't planned but we were snowed in. Used the kids paddling pool, towels (lots of really nice soft tumble dried ones) and lots and lots of sweary words.

Other than some towels, I don't think we used anything special for our home births. The midwives brought pads with waterproof backing for the bed - and with ds3, the first sign of labour was my waters going in bed, so the worst was over before she got there - and I think I had a towel under the sheet, which soaked up the worst of it - the mattress was fine afterwards, that much I do remember.

I did have a birthing pool for ds2, but the way my labour went, I never got to use it - dh had it half filled, then the midwife said it was too early to go into it, and I should have a bath and go to bed - and told dh to empty it out again as we wouldn't need it for hours. He emptied it, I had my bath, my contractions took off like a rocket, and ds2 arrived shortly after.

I had an NCT coffee morning, whilst I was in labour with ds3 - I can recommend that - everyone else does all the washing up!

Oh - and to excuse my haziness on the details - ds3 turned 17 this year, so the details aren't too fresh in my memory - and my memory has been destroyed in the intervening years!

Bucket for topping pool up, I used an old washing up bowl as well as I threw up both Homebirths.

Candles, music player loaded with relaxing tunes

Lots of ice cubes for cold drinks

Gym ball if you want to use that first (best not to get into pool too early)