VBAC and birth pools

[happy2bme]

Hi there,

I'm 32 weeks pregnant - second time. I'm wanting to try for VBAC (ds1 was emCS - failed induction due to pre eclampsia). I have a very supportive midwife who is supportive of my wish to plan to deliver at my local birthing centre - 20 miles away from nearest consultant unit where protocol says I should deliver. MW will discuss my case when they have a meeting about upcoming births next week - and i'm expecting a lot of the other midwives to be resistant/apprehensive about being asked to help with a VBAC delivery.

I was taken by surprise at MW appointment yesterday to find out that my midwife is against me using the birthing pool, and she seemed to put this down to the pool offering such a level of pain relief that I would not be aware if my scar was rupturing?!!! I know that the constant pain in the scar area between contractions is a primary indicator that something is not right - but surely I would be able to still feel this in birthing pool.

I know that there is apprehension around getting a labouring woman out of a pool in an emergency situation - but my feeling is that with an attentive and experienced midwife the vast majority of potential emergencies would be noticed at an early stage and not allowed to progress.

Anyone got any thoughts/know of any research on this? Also has anyone got a good birth plan that they used to plan a natural VBAC birth?

Hi there,
Sorry I haven't got time to reply in detail, but have you seen this yahoo group?
groups.yahoo.com/group/ukvbachbac
Lots of useful info there and helpful peple!
Selina

My understanding is that a uterine rupture is a pretty strong pain that wouldn't be masked by water in the pool. That really sounds like a poor excuse.

Uterine rupture is quoted as the reason for an awful lot of silly procedures yet there is far more chance of other things going wrong e.g. cord prolapse. It's all a bit of a throwback to when ruptures were quite common because women had vertical scars.

I had a home water VBAC and it was wonderful. I also strongly recommend a doula.

this is the only research I managed to find on the web in relation to WBAC

These are the RCOG guidelines.

FWIW I managed to get my consultant to agree to me using the pool for my VBAC, so long as I got out for the second stage or any hint of trouble brewing. The advantage I had though was that m/w led & consultant led births are in the same building in my hospital.

(Ended up with an el c/s at 40+10, but that's a whole other story...)

this is useful reference for detection of potential scar rupture

Claw gave me a really good birthplan link, I'll see if I can find it again...

Found it

Thank you all so much for the links and info - am just off now to look at them...