How much do liners matter in a birth pool?

[Lovage]

I'm booked for a homebirth, supposed to have pool supplied by community midwifery team, but they haven't got one in stock at the moment. I'm due in a week, but getting a few signs now (loads of Braxton Hicks, upset stomach, pubic pain suggesting head may be descending) so getting twitchy about whether I'll get one in time.

I have a couple of leads of friends and friends-of-friends who may have inflatable type pools I can borrow, but if I am going to go into labour soon I may not have time to get a liner in time (midwives one came with a new liner included). I've still got the liner from last time, when I hired one of those enormous fibreglass pools. Could I reuse that, even though it'll be much bigger than an inflatable pool? Or could I manage without? Or would that be to antisocial for the pool's real owner? I could scrub it really well afterwards (or, more likely, someone else could! I may be a little busy afterwards).

When are you due?

Ah, in a week

You could phone the pool people and see how quickly they can get a liner to you.

i borrowed an inflatable pool from a very kind and lovely lady who had not totally cleaned it up before she gave it to me.

i'll be frank, cleaning up someone else's dried on blood from a birth pool at 41 weeks pregnant was not a high spot in my parenthood journey.

use a liner... really....

I think the point of a liner is to keep things reasonably sterile. You don't want to be birthing in lurgy filled water.

Maybe filling the pool, sterilizing it with tonnes of milton (or similar) would be OK, obviously you need to empty the milton water out and store the pool in a clean way ready for use though. You need to speak to your midwife and a pool expert really.

I so appreciated my pool in labour, it was fantastic.

When I had ds1 the midwife told me to Milton the liner and hang to it for future use. So assuming you've kept your first liner in good order I don't see why you can't reuse it.

Blimey, I didn't think of dried blood and stuff!

hang on to it

My liner got bundled up and binned along with the remaining gloop left once the pool had been drained!!

You definitely need to use a liner in a borrowed pool - your own germs are fine for your baby, but not necessarly some one else's germs!

I would have thought you could use the liner you have, but a matching liner would be easier an more comfortable. BPIAB deliver really quickly.

Hi lovage, I'm booked in for a homebirth too in roughly 5 weeks time, but my midwife didn't offer to provide a pool, where you going to hire it or was it free? I've been looking at all the different inflatable pools available and find it a little confusing to chose one. Good luck with the birth of your baby .

Will investigate the old liner. Has been in the garage for 2 years, but should be in reasonable order - damp and woodworms don't seem like problems to thick plastic! I didn't end up giving birth in it, so it never got particularly dirty.

Browny - I got lucky this time - the community midwives supply an inflatable one + new liner for free. You only have to supply the hose, tap attachments, fishing net and water temp thermometer. Last time I hired a big fibreglass one which was fantastic but expensive (£400 for a 5 week loan, I think). But worth every penny. I don't really know about inflatable ones -would prefer another fibreglass one cos it was so fab, but given that the inflatable one is free... Except non-available is not good!

Inflatable pools are nice, because they cushion you a bit.

Hope it all goes well for you, Lovage.