NHS warning risk of Legionella from ready heated home birthing pools

[robotnikchair]

www.cas.dh.gov.uk/ViewandAcknowledgment/ViewAlert.aspx?AlertID=102179

Anyone thinking of having a home birth and getting a birthing pool needs to read this. The NHS alert made it into the press when the baby was ill but sadly the infant has subsequently died of Legionella pneumonia

Who fills the birthing pool TWO WEEKSahead of labour?!

No risk if pool filled on onset of labour, which is surely what sane people do

Umm yes what Fatty said - this isn't so much a risk with birthing pools themselves as with leaving a pool of water you are going to do a medical procedure in for two fricken weeks full of water.
Who would even do that??

Would they have a bath they'd left stagnating for 2 weeks? Or go in a swimming pool that was untreated for 2 weeks? Let alone have a baby in one.

But it doesn't say it was "stagnating"? They DO provide chemicals to clean the water.
My friend had her birthing pool ready and filled a couple of weeks before as she was suffering so badly with backache and it provided good pain relief for her - she treated it with the provided cleaning / antibac stuff from the company as instructed every day and it had a motorised filter. It sounds like that still wouldn't be enough to prevent this. My friend is a very intelligent scientist (though not biology) so if it wasn't obvious to her I wouldn't say it certainly wouldn't be obvious to everyone...