Water births

[Giraffe5]

Why are they so popular? Is it less painful?

It did nothing for me, in fact it slowed my labour down and I had to get out to give birth. My tens helped more (although not in water obviously!).

Each trust has guidelines.
Things like bmi less than 35, iron levels. I guess you have to ask at your hospital.

On third birth, waters went at home. I had a bath, was alone in the house. I was all zen, in the zone, totally relaxed...
DH came back, started panicking, how far apart are contractions etc. I hadn't been counting or timing so hadnt a clue. They were 90 seconds apart. My friend arrived to take me to hospital and return older kids, so I hopped out of the bath....
Holy Mother of God,the pain!!! I could barely walk, shaking, in a right pickle. Luckily hospital is very near and baby arrived very quickly once I got there. But I couldn't believe how relaxed and pain free I was in the bath, then how full on it became the second I got out of the bath. Amazing!

Ooh great thread ladies, thanks for all the advice thoughts so far. A couple of questions to add (and I appreciate that some of these questions are ridiculous first time mum questions)

Do you have to get out to be examined to 'check' that you are 10cm before you can push or is that not a thing?

The poo scenario - I presume that if you need to poop early on you can just get out and use the loo? I also presume that most of the pooping happens at the pushing stage? And therefore one would probably not give a flying hoot about toddling off to the wc for a polite turd?

Really ridiculous question - is there a shower attachment so you can kind of 'hose off' as you get out? I am not even someone who has to shower religiously in real life but I have this huge issue in my head about showering after birth!

I'd love a water birth but I have dodgy knees and am not good kneeling which has slightly put me off. Do they have anything that you can use for support or can you roll a towel up and stick them under your knees for extra support. Am 32 weeks and going to discuss water birth with my midwife next week so following this thread with interest.

Also -I had a bad post partum haemorrhage with DD - would this prohibit me from a water birth in case it happens again? On my list of questions to ask midwife but good to hear others' experiences before hand. :)

You don't need to be examined for them to tell you're fully dilated. There are other signs apparently (not sure what they are though). You won't need a MW to tell you that you can push now - once you get that urge nothing will stop it, you'll just have to go with it.

Yes, you would only poo during pushing stage (some people don't, it's not a given), don't think you would just do it in the pool if not pushing

There's no shower attachment, but you can shower afterwards once you're all sorted out. We had separate showers in labour wards - I assume they have them in most places? I've not been on post natal ward so don't know a what stage they transfer you there.

You don't have to kneel - I was crouching standing on my feet. There is also a step inside the pool that you can sit on if you want. Or you could ask for a towel (although some hospitals don't provide towels).

Sorry I don't know anything about pph - your MW should be able to answer that.

Remember that a water birth isn't necessarily one thing or the other - you can labour in the water for a bit and, if you don't like it or the situation changes for another reason, get out and do something else.

I spent around 8hrs in the pool during my first labour. Didn't help at all with pain relief, but was quite pleasant to be in the water.
Had to get out for various reasons, and did the next 12 or so hours of labour elsewhere.

This time I'll ask for the pool again, but keep an open mind and know that I'll have to get out if I need pain relief or some sort of intervention.

I genuinely believe my first labour would have gone even more smoothly had they allowed me to just get in the pool instead of being twats over 0.5cm and trying to send me home. I ended up panicking so my pulse went up so they wanted to monitor baby so sent me down to consultant unit where they finally agreed I was in labour and admitted me to find I was 10cm and pushing - baby was back to back and it would have been so much easier in the water.

I think I did poo a bit in the pool but tbh it was no big deal. After dd was born the water was almost completely clean, just a tiny bit of vernix.
I had a shower later on.

My first birth was a water one. No examination. MW listened in a few times with a handheld thing. She asked me if she could and I knelt up in between contractions so she could.
Dont recall pooing in the water and didn't need a shower when I got out!

No-one will thank me for this I'm sure , but I had a homebirth, so a midwife plus student midwife attended my labour, and a third was summoned for the actual birth. I'm absolutely convinced I heard the midwife on the phone to third midwife claim 'anal dilation' as one of her reasons for believing baby was imminent (See? Told you you wouldn't thank me). The baby arrived well before the third midwife. (But if it helps I definitely didn't poo in the pool.)

Midwife here and yes, anal dilation is a good sign of second stage when I was training we had a fab black lecturer who used to demonstrate how it looked by pouting her lips*, she said it just didn't look the same if white women did it!

Waterbirths: fab for all the reasons given above. With a previous PPH I would probably ask you to hop out soon after birth so I can keep an eye on your blood loss (harder to monitor as it disperses in water although generally speaking if you can still see the bottom of the pool of the pool it's ok) but otherwise wouldn't be too worried. Would probably recommend a cannula too just in case but the dressing is waterproof so you could still use the pool. At our unit we have wireless ctg monitors that can be used in the pool and are ace but not available everywhere.

*the ones on her face....

Are they good if you've got spd/back pain? Does it help take the pressure off your joints a bit? First time mum here with nasty spd but a big fan of water!

Yes, skipton. I had bad spd in first pregnancy and found that because the water supported my weight so well it really took the pressure off and also allowed me to move around freely, something I found hard to do on dry land. I'm a big fan of water too and absolutely loved being in it to give birth.

Thanks city I'm not sure if they're offered here (Sweden) but I'm a real water baby (dh jokes I am a semi aquatic mammal) and I love the idea of being in a warm pool of all goes well!

I had a water birth and didn't poo

I didn't plan a water birth at all but I had horrendous backache and the pool was free so I thought I'd give it a go. It helped so much and the birthing pool was huge so I could really move around a lot.

The only things I'd say from my experience:

• it does limit your pain relief options; you can only have gas and air in the water. But the water helps so much you might be ok with that!

• my labour didn't progress at first while I was in the water so I had to get out for a couple of hours and then back in

• DD's heart rate dropped during pushing and she needed to be monitored so I had to get out and deliver her on dry land, and they'd taken my gas and air away so I delivered her without pain relief, which was fairly brutal!

But I'd say the positives massively outweighed any negatives. If I have another I'm planning a home birth and I'll definitely be hiring a pool.

I got into the pool with ds and it was just a bit cold and slowed everything down. My waters had broken but had blood in so I had to labour at the hospital-I don't think I was far enough along to benefit properly from the water (pretty sure they wouldn't have admitted me without the blood in the waters). At our hospital the pool had a shower attachment over it, I know because the crappy mw didn't really show us how to use everything properly and we ended up showering me and my bag with cold water with it!
I wouldn't imagine poo would be an issue. I had my dd 2 weeks ago and it was all a bit of a rush (had her in a spare bed in the induction suite as they wouldn't admit me because "I wasn't in labour"). I pooed myself and only realised when the mw warned me not to kneel in it before she could clean it up! Isn't that nice and dignified? Water might have been cleaner!

I think that if you really need to push then you probably are ready. I was anyway- that was the point at which they started rushing around dragging equipment in!

I would love a water birth... I've heard such good reviews.

This had made me wonder if I should consider having a go in the pool - I live in dubai and until about 2 weeks ago water births weren't allowed, there is a pool at one hospital (probably the one I will go to) that you could spend time in but not give birth in but now they've got the licence for births. Might ask my doc about it and see what he thinks.

It is always worth giving it a go IMO - you can always get out if you don't like it/it doesn't work for you.

I really want a water birth because when I'm in the bath my baby kicks around and seems relaxed in the water and it keeps me calm but the problem I have is that I want my partner as involved as possible while I'm giving birth. I asked about him getting in with me and apparently the pools aren't big enough so I'm afraid that he will just have to stand there and feel like his involvement is limited? Any advice? how did your partners cope/what did they do to get involved x

Your partner might not want to be in the water anyway - it's tepid, not that clean, and also limits his ability to run around and get you stuff if he's having to get dry etc each time.

My Dh sat at the side of the pool mainly saying encouraging things. He was also in charge of getting me sips of water, sorting the music each time the iPod started annoyingly repeating itself, and fetching the midwife when I needed her.

At the beginning he rubbed my back etc but after a while I couldn't bear to be touched. His main "job", though, was to act as my advocate when I couldn't speak.

Just to add - don't underestimate the importance of having an advocate who really knows you, knows when you're being very serious, and who knows what you want.
For example, someone who knows that when you say "epidural NOW", you really mean it - despite what you might have been saying a few hours earlier, and what might be in the birth plan!

Skipton, they are actually recommended for people with SPD as long as you can get in and out ok. Certainly worked for me.

Yea we had seen in certain places he could get in and help the baby as he is coming out so he would have first contact that why both him and myself wanted him in the water but apparently the pools aren't big enough? I didn't even think out him running around and doing things so I suppose he is involved no matter what goes on......his mum is also coming in with us because I bounce off her really well. x

I would have really loved to experience a water birth, heard lots of good things! I ended up being induced with DC1 and was hooked up to all sorts of drips and monitoring equipment though unfortunately. With DC2 I could have had one as it was a pretty straight forward natural labour, but upon being admitted I made the mistake of hysterically screaming for pain relief mid contraction (ended up doing it on just gas and air in the end) so instead of putting me in the attached MLU they sent me to the labour suite instead.

If you get the opportunity I would at least give it a try, you can always get out if you decide it's not for you.