What essential things do you need for a home birth?

[electra]

I don't have any old towels! Should I buy cheap ones?

On a scale of 1-10, how useful is a birthing ball?

How do you decide about whether to use a pool or not?

Other essentials?

TIA

Plastic sheeting to protect carpets etc. I bought B&Q value decorating sheets, massive and covered everything. Maybe old sheet or somthing to cover them
Anglepoise Lamp - to help mw's see
Clock
Towels, could buy cheap ones, they will probably wash tbh.
MW's will bring most stuff, they will ask you for anything specific they require.

Pool is up to yourself

try the homebirth website. I'm sure someone will be along in a minute with a link.

There are also lots of old threads asking this, you could try searching them too

HB's are great

think had to provide torch incase of powercut

There have been a few threads on this lately if you want to have a look in childbirth I think.
However, in my case my labour with dd2 was 3 hrs from first twinge to babe in arms so only used the birth ball for first half hour, after that I needed to pace around as the contractions were too strong. Used it a lot postnatally tho (only cheap from Argos) and I'm always using them at work (I'm a student midwife) I think they are a good way of staying upright if you don't want to walk about. I did use old towels and those bed protectors you can get for toddlers but still stained the mattress. Good luck, home births are bloody great!

I LOVED my water birth and would definitely recommend it. I bought a Made in Water pool, which was fab, and not too expensive, and you can always sell it on afterwards

I definitely needed waterproof sheets for a waterbirth (cheapo plastic dust sheets from B&Q - or cheapo shower curtains from a supermarket.) I imagine one or two of those would be useful even without water.

As for towels, it depends how much you care about the ones you have - you could always just use them, then if they are ruined replace them later, demoting them to general cleaning-up cloths. I thought one of our only lovely white towels was completely runied, but to my utter disbelief it actually came completely clean again.

I used my birthing ball all through pregnancy - it's particularly good towards the end for making you sit in a good posture for your back and baby - but I didn't use it in labour. You can buy them in Decathlon - mine was about a tenner three years ago.

For other essentials I can recommend the homebirth.org website.

Ooh, I'm all broody and excited again now!!

blimey - these posts weren't here when i started typing!!

Here's the link then...www.homebirth.org.uk/

Thanks for your replies! It looks like I will have to get some cheap towels from Primark or something. Do birthing pools take up a lot of space?

hi i had a home birth just over 2 wks ago and i would say essentials were/are:

• ball (i sat and bounced gently on mine for about 6 hours of contractions)
• TENS machine - weird feeling but worked really well while sitting on ball
• pool - even just for a change of scene!
• candles - we had the room just candlelit which felt really relaxing
• plastic sheets etc - i ended up giving birth just out of the pool on the living room floor so sheets essential!
• chilled out music
• loads of preferably dark colour towels
• thermometer to chk pool temp
• water bottle and lucozade tablets!
• torch - midwife used to examine me in pool

look at the birth pool in a box website or www.thegoodbirth.co.uk one of which has dimensions for space you need for pool. we had mini pool and i thought it was perfect, but i'm only 5'4"

HTH

We had a BPIAB in the living room. It's not massive. Definitely loads of towels. But we are still using most of the ones we used at the birth. Just make sure your washing machine is empty before you go into labour and get them washed asap

Never really needed anything else, the midwives brought a lot of equipment the week before.

takeaway v.important lockets

champagne not kidding... essential.. had it before the placenta was out, really.

I had an old beanbag it was just easier for me to sit on got it from freecycle

about 6 old towels - went to local charity shop told the manager what where and why and she gave me a ton for a donation

plastic sheeting - madwife gave me some but you can use decorating sheet B&Q basics stuff

bed pads - pound shop have puppy pads for a quid they are good for the purpose

knickers knickers and more flaming knickers!!

I packed a bag of tricks for myself knickers socks pads boobie pads sweets bath shite cream lotions potions just so I could say yes it's in my bag.
then I packed a baby bag vests nappies grows
again so I could happily say it's in the bay bag!

I never used a pool had a warm bath ready sat in for a bit but preferred to amble about to be honest.

I had some lovely labour massage oil great for any time even after mother natures goodies sells some

to be honest I never used that much I went psssssssssssst in the toilet called hubby started to stand over our bedroom rug frown at the leaking decided I wanted to be on the bed leaning on the beanbag and went gentle pop on the plastic sheeting hubby rolled it up and bin bagged it and I carried on from there.

after Daniel was born Simon (midwife) let me hold him and checked him over took photos did the wow the world is a wonderful place! handed him to dad took me through to the bathroom let me wee have a wash brought me my nightdress and some knickers a pad and in the time I had done that they had stripped the bed changed it put a vest and nappy on Daniel I sat in bed hubby got me a drink and some toast
Simon did his notes helped me feed Daniel and left us to it came back the next morning.

fantastic!!

I just had a homebirth on Sunday! So it's fresh in my mind. 5 hour labour after 36 hours the first time!

I had DD in a hired fibreglass oval shaped birthing pool, it was BRILLIANT, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It made the pushing stage totally bearable and effective, and could get into the right position etc. I got in at 10 cm and the relief was incredible. I regained control, kind of, and pushed her out in 20 mins with no tearing.

So I would really consider the pool seriously. I wasn't that into the idea but was persuaded by other people who had had waterbirths.

TENS machine was also helpful.

Also the doula. Couldn't have coped so well without her. I would really consider this.

The ball was good, basically I thought each time ok where shall I have the next contraction. Choice was leaning on kitchen surfaces, leaning against bookshelf, squatting (most painful) or sitting on ball. it just gave me another choice.

an aluminium hot water bottle that I could hold against my back during contractions was an absolute must as well. however take care as I burned my back a bit from this, but it really helped. that with the TENS together was great.

hope this helps!

Hi Electra - good luck for your HB. Like Gemzooks, I also had a homebirth on Sunday, so it's pretty fresh in my mind too! I'm sure people have said the obvious things like pool, ball, old sheets, towels etc, so I'll say the things that helped me which perhaps on the "normal" HWB lists:

-- Homeopathic remedies (you can buy a childbirth kit) which I thought would be no use at all as I am a bit of a sceptic about those kinds of things, but actually, I think they helped and they gave my DH something to do to try and diagnose what kind of pain / exhaustion / emotion I was dealing with and what he could give me to remedy that.

-- Music (download Spotify on the internet.. it's like Itunes but free and has all the tunes you could ever think of on it... I was in latent labour for 3 days and having this assortment of music really distracted me)

-- Lavender oil burner (although now when DH puts it on, all I can think of is the birth!)

-- Hot power shower (pointed at my lower back during the painful contractions)

-- Small cut up pieces of fruit in a bowl (apples, bananas etc); this was the ONLY thing DH could manage to make me eat by about day 4 and established labour...

-- TENS (which has probably been mentioned, but was essential for the earlier stages)

-- Knee pads! At least for me! I couldn't get through a contraction without getting onto all fours - it was the ONLY position I could deal with them in, and as they came on so strong and so suddenly, I basically had to collapse to the floor / sofa / bed wherever I was. Sometimes that meant the kitchen floor or the stairs or elsewhere without padding, and my poor knees were in bits after 4 days! The post birth pictures have me leaning against the sofa breast feeding DD with red raw knees in the foreground! Nice...

-- Candles

-- Big fluffy dressing gown to get into after baby is out. It got covered in blood which you just don't care about at the time, but it's so nice to do your first feed not in one of DH's old t-shirts which is what I had been wearing up until that point... and we've washed it now and all the blood and much has come out!

-- An amazing DH/DP

Am using this post to blatantly re-live my own home birth. God I am sad.

GOOD LUCK! Home births are the best!

xxx

that should read aren't on the normal lists... sorry

I got old towels and sheets from freecycle. Waterproof mattress protector and old sheets are a must IMO - you will be bleeding heavily after the birth and may leak out of the pads, especially at night. With a hospital birth the first few days/nights would be in hospital and by the time you come home the blood flow is mugh lighter. Also when your milk comes in you can wake up in a puddle! So again the old sheets/mattress protector will save your mattress and "nice" sheets. I lived in bed for the first 3 days and changed all nappies etc on bed so mattress protector also stopped our mattress getting wet when the baby weed everywhere (as will definitely happen if you have a boy!!)

Oh and agree with definitely get a pool if you can afford it.

If you have to transfer to hospital enquire about using their pool - it totally slipped my mind when I went in and it was only because one nice midwife mentioned it that I got to use it at all, the others didn't even offer it as an option. Also, don't be scared if you do go in - the staff were lovely and very gentle with me, and respected my wishes for a very natural autonomous birth as I'd been booked for a home birth. I even managed to get discharged the same day so could snuggle up in my own bed with DS on his first night in the world, which was lovely.

I'd say the most important thing is a ripe baby in your tummy

good luck. I wanted a home birth but moving house at 36weeks meant that we were never quite sure where we'd be living at the time

The only things I actually used in the end were:

pampers pads on the floor
towels to wrap baby in
lots of isotonic drinks for hydration
snacks galore for post birth muinchies
bowl for being sick into after post baby munchies

and that's it! everything was so quick the MW / Doula snacks never even amde it to the table

Stuff like lamp tc are worth having but mimalistic will do it

Whack heating up, get baby clothes warmed ready and a receiving blanket warm also, snuggly PJ's ready and you're done . Less ahssle than packing a maternity bag TBH

My birthing ball was a 10 as I bounced on it watching 2dtv and labour went wonderfully easily, but a bath in the early half of ds2's buirth amde me claustrophobic so a pool a no-no (normally love baths but not in labour)

Oh towels- I wanted dark ones (so i didnt freak out DH with red blood stains)so just took every onoe I had that was marked / old etc and dyed them in the machine. Fab

Thanks for all your help! Very useful thread for me. Do you have to have a very big house to use a pool? My house is not big but reasonable amount of space, but I'm wondering how disruptive it will be to have a pool up iyswim?

electra - we had the mini birth pool in a box which took about 30-45 mins to blow up and fill to a reasonable level (i.e. enough for me to get in and then DH continued filling). so it didn't take up much room but also we only set it up once i was in labour. good birth website (www.thegoodbirth.co.uk) and staff v helpful if you want to know dimensions once set up.

HTH

Thanks RunJHC, I will look at that site