sterilising birth pool

[babber]

Hi there
Have just taken delivery of a pool in a box i bought off ebay...
I know i need to sterlilise it before i use it but have no idea of the best way to do this... presumably the hose and everything all need sterilising as well as the pool. do i need to scrup with milton or will antibac wipes do? Help!
(we are aplnning on doing a 'dummy run' later this week so thought i might as well do the sterilisation whilst its up...)

bump

Buy a new liner for it.

youi can buy a new liner, but to be perfectly honest I really wouldn't bother.
it does not need sterilising.
birth pools in hospitals aren't sterilised, just cleaned well.
as soon as you put water in it and get in it yourself it will not be sterile.
nor is anything else around you when you give birth

i would just clean it with soapy water and be done with it

my mw told me it should be used with a new liner as impossible to clean properly in all the grooves but i know of people using milton to clean with it, water isn't sterile anyway i know the good birth company say buy new hose and tap adaptors

bear in mind there are plenty of birth pools you can buy that don't even come with liners. so really not necessary.
i had a la bassine and you just use that as it is.

i can't help but feel that the liners are just another way of scaring mums into paying out more money than they need to

The mw told me just to wipe it down with dettol wipes...this is what the website advised where the pool was originally from too..no need for liners!

I used the bath during my first homebirth and that certainly wasn't sterile! Would agree with others, just give it a good scrub with hot soapy water.

I think if it's been bought off eBay and come from a source you don't really know then I'd prefer to use a disposable liner with it to be honest. They're only about £20 from BPIAB website. If you really don't want to do that then just clean well with hot soapy water and some diluted dettol making sure you get into all the grooves in between the different compartments.

If you think about it, potentially that pool could have contained blood stained, amniotic fluid, the woman's/baby's faeces and any number of infections from the woman or baby. Not something I'd be keen on bathing in and giving birth it without at least a damn good scrub first.

Thanks for advice everyone. have already ordered a new liner for it anyway, I didn't really think about the fact that I wouldn't have to clean it if i used one of those. (lazy option always best for me even if it means shelling out another 20 quid!)
might give the hose a bit of a clean to be on safe side as it was also used to empty the pool when it has been used before.