Things to do at home during labour to ease pain - any advice from experienced mums?

[Kalikaroo]

Hi! I'm 35+5 pregnant with my first baby and although I'm planning to have my baby in hospital, I was wondering what sort of things have helped you to ease labour at home before going into hospital?

We don't have a bath (unfortunately!) but we do have a shower - did you find it helpful to sit in there?

Also, is it worth getting a birth-ball to bounce on?

Any other tips/hints/advice would be greatly appreciated!

Oh yeah - tens machines are handy after the birth also - to help with back pain etc (i used mine for a couple of weeks after dd came along) we got ours from boots, but i think mothercare also hire them - well worth it!

I agree with birthing ball and tens machine, had neither with DS1 and found labour so much easier to cope with with DS2.
I also laughed maniacally at 8 out of 10 cats and other Friday night comedy programmes whilst bouncing on ball and using tens machine. That really helped . As soon as my contractions started I jumped in the shower and washed and changed too, which made me feel a lot more human.
I then had to walk up a really steep hill in the snow as we were snowed in .

I found sitting on a birth ball complete agony during labour (perhaps because it was speeding things up, I don't know!) A TENS machine helped me a lot with my second, but not so much with the third which was quicker and more intense (1.5 hrs in total!)
I've found it helpful to walk around as much as possible and time my contractions (as a distraction more than anything else), and when I had a contraction to stand still, hold on tight to something and concentrate on breathing deeply.