Short laborers -- your cheap birth pool strategy?

[morgainesmama]

I was blessed to borrow an Aquadoula from a friend for my Isaac's birth 6 years ago. Had xh set it up the day before I ended up having him, and was SO GLAD -- I got out of bed at 3, went back to bed, got up again at 3:30 and got my things and got into the tub, and had him at 4:45.

I want to waterbirth but want the pool full, warm, and ready in the case of another short labor. By the time I fill a kiddy pool and get it to 98 degrees, the baby will have come on dry land while I yearned for the water.

So ... I'd love your strategies/suggestions for cheap heated deep pools/whatever.

[micah_mae_]

Originally Posted by morgainesmama

I was blessed to borrow an Aquadoula from a friend for my Isaac's birth 6 years ago. Had xh set it up the day before I ended up having him, and was SO GLAD -- I got out of bed at 3, went back to bed, got up again at 3:30 and got my things and got into the tub, and had him at 4:45.

I want to waterbirth but want the pool full, warm, and ready in the case of another short labor. By the time I fill a kiddy pool and get it to 98 degrees, the baby will have come on dry land while I yearned for the water.

So ... I'd love your strategies/suggestions for cheap heated deep pools/whatever.

I'm watching this. With DS1 I was fully dilated 2 hours after AROM..of course it took 2 hours to push him out but he was 10.5 lbs so that could be why.
I figure if this one is smaller it'll take less time to push and my 1st stage may or may not be up to half as long. *sigh*

[DirtRoadMama]

How about a used hot tub from Craigslist? I've seen some being given away because folks were moving and didn't want to deal with it.

[jennica]

My midwife suggested I rent a birth tub instead of buying an inflatable one since I am worried about a fast labor. She said that we can keep it filled and heated and ready to jump in for about 3 days, then will have to change the water again. I'm not sure yet if that is what I will do or not, but it sounds much better to me than frantically trying to fill an inflatable tub and making sure it is the right temp.

[Right of Passage]

I bought the notorious fishy pool on ebay for $10.

[JorgieGirl]

We have a La Bassine that we have filled 4 large water bottles with water sitting sealed (the kind that go on a water cooler) on the floor of the tub. As soon as labour starts, any time now, we just dump out the water which will be room temp and easy to heat, to knock off a good chunk of water volume. Then with our kitchen tap will run pure hot into it til full. We have yet to do a trial run, but after our first birth that nearly didn't happen in the water, I can only see this going much better.

[alton]

I'm not sure that this will help but my husband came up with the idea of connecting a big-diameter hose to the hot water inlet for our washing machine. That way the pool fills much faster than from a kitchen tap.

Our plan is to put on silver-backed bubble wrap, cut to size so it actually floats right on top of the water, to keep the water warm. Also, you have to be careful to only put hot water in on the first fill and not let the flow go cold.

Then we're going to ramp up the thermostat, turn the lever on the tank over so it is just heating water and not the radiators, and top up when it's hot.

We've got the pool inflated in the meantime to knock another 10-15 minutes off the process.

It's also a good idea, as you get close, to set your timer to heat water at night!

Oh and put some padding underneath especially if you have cold tiles like we do.

If you don't have good padding round the sides, it might be worth making a wrap out of the silver-backed bubble wrap and sellotape for that too?
From what I've read it's better to have the water too hot and cool it down when you're ready to hop in, than too cold and try to warm it up.

[dannic]

Originally Posted by Right of Passage

I bought the notorious fishy pool on ebay for $10.

I LOVE the notorious fishy pool, lol! I have short labors too (well, 4 hrs) and it was not a hassle at all. We had the thing already inflated and had the aquarium gear to fill it. DH did that while I kneeled at my birthing ball. I labored in a jacuzzi tub with a prior birth and I can tell ya that the soft edges of the fishy pool were far superior to anything hard. So much more comfortable to me. (Which reminds me, I'd better grab one soon ,lol)

[TrishWSU]

We used the fishy pool. We blew it up a few days in advance-it was really a trial run to see how long it would take to inflate it. Once we got it blown up (took maybe 15 minutes with an electric air pump) it had a very plasticy smell so we left it inflated. By the time I went into labor a few days later the smell was gone.

I had the Aquadoula for my 1st birth and never got to use because it took too long to set up and fill. I wanted to get in the water SO bad the whole time. I kept asking if it ws ready even while I was pushing.

[alton]

I'll probably get a prize for stating the obvious here - but make sure you use fresh batteries to blow the pool up if you are using a battery operated pump. The difference between the first use and the second use can be quite a long time!

[Belle]

We rented La Bassine from our midwives. We had it already filled with air and standing on its side in our living room to discourage the cat from investigating it.

For most of my labor I was on the toilet. I was in my own little world laboring just fine and I really only wanted dh there to bring me food and drink. He got the birth tub ready (I'm not sure how much time it took because my sense time is kind of murky when in labor) I started pushing on the toilet and got a few good poops on the toilet before I ran to the tub between contractions.

Total labor was a little less than four hours. He'd have been able to get the tub set up sooner if he'd actually believed me that I was in labor when I told him I was in transition. I was shaking pretty badly, had bloody show, and was nauseous by the scrambled eggs he fixed for me. He called the midwives, concerned about my shaking. They rushed right out.

[nikirj]

We also inflated the pool ahead of time. It takes about 30 minutes to situate and inflate most of the ring-type pools. We propped it against a wall in our house - benefit of having a bigger house this time around.

We also started filling early, which did mean that we filled it once just to use it as an indoor hot tub, but the strategy paid off because my actual active-phase labor was only 30 minutes long and we never would have filled it in that time. It was worth one false fill.

And we turned up the water heater a bit. And my husband had our two largest pots on the stovetop. A pot of nearly-boiling water isn't even worth a full degree temp rise in your pool, so don't count on that method to fix a cold pool, just as a way to boost a fill a little longer.

We wound up having a good warning this time - my water broke before labor - so we filled the pool a little more than halfway before labor started, and we still barely got it full by the time the baby was born.