Confused - warm bath vs water birth

[themacsmum]

This is probably a very daft question so sorry if I'm just being dim. I'm really keen on a waterbirth at the local hospital. My midwife is supportive and explained that I have a good chance of achieving at least a water labour if not a water birth. She did say however that I wouldn't be allowed in the pool if I was less than 5cm dilated as this could slow labour down. Thinking about this now I was just wondering that if this effect is true then is there a risk that if you have a warm bath when you are at home in the early stages that you could slow labour down or actually stop it resulting in a stop-start labour?
Many thanks

Absolutely. In fact my MW advises that if you're not sure if you are in labour proper you have bath. If it isn't really going it will stop and if it is the real thing it will carry on regardless.

Thing is, labour can be long and hard work. Even if it does slow things down a bit to me the benefits of having an hour to wallow in the water and to relax far outweighed any risk of things getting slower.

Not dim question at all.

With DS, I laboured at home with no bath and was 8.5cm on arrival at hospital. Unfortunately as soon as I went into the pool, labour ground to a halt. It was definitely proper labour at that stage, so I don't know what went wrong really; maybe he would have become "stuck" regardless? But the MWs all seemed to think it was the nice warm water that scuppered me in the first instance ... make of that what you will

After that no amount of mobilizing, bouncing, drips or swearing at DP could get the final "rim" of cervix to shift, so I ended up with a cs. Which was fine, not traumatic in any way, but kind of annoying after all that hard work.

Not to put you off water entirely as I don't think that it was the entire reason for my outcome, but it did seem to play a part in slowing things down.

My labour with DD was very slow. Dilation took over a day and that was with the hormone drip to speed things up.
Anyway in the very early stages I was advised to take a nice warm bath. MW returned to check on me and after commenting that i looked too relaxed, told me to be careful that it didnt slow the contractions down too much. With that I realised that yes it had slowed them down to next to nothing so had to jump out pretty quickly.
Shame as it was very relaxing!

One of my fondest labour memories is chatting to DH whilst eating a Mars Bar in the bath

Myself and two other friends all found that the birthing pool completely stalled (and in one case reversed!) dilation. But we were all also put in the pool way too early, long before 5cm dilation (more like 2 or 3 cm). What really annoyed me afterwards was that I knew about this, but was too out of it during labour to put two and two together! It's something I'd advise any birthing partner to be aware of and be prepared to question.

if labour is not established a warm bath can be really relaxing and knock off the pre labour pains. if labour is established , but early on, i.e before 5 cm, it can slow and stall labour.. if you get in after 5cm, then you should deliver , michel odent reckons, within a couple of hours

if labour is truly established it won't stop until the baby is delivered, but can be slowed to a point, but the pains won't stop until the baby is born

themacsmum, great post! My DH and I were having the same conversation last night!

Very interesting as I am planning a homewater birth, so I will def make sure I dont get in to early!

Funny how we are encouraged to have a warm bath early on, but I suppose a good marker to see if you are in labour to start with!

Good luck x

Thanks everyone for the helpful advice.

Good luck morethemerrier and all of you who are awaiting a bundle of joy