Shower adapter thingey for hose?

[Phoenix~Mama]

Can you tell how technical minded I am?

I was wondering if anyone has hooked up their hose to fill their birth pool via their shower head? Or something in the bathroom? What did you use? How did it work?

I think I'd really much rather be on the second floor if at all possible, because the thought of tackling stairs right after birth to get a shower and get cozy in bed... is um... yeah definitely NOT appealing. The only bathroom is on the second floor too.

But I don't think there is anyway to a hook a hose to the bathroom sink... I'm thinking best bet is something to do with the shower head...

Any thoughts?

[ShwarmaQueen]

Ours was taking a long time to fill (we had the large fishy pool and started filling when I was at 6cm) via the waterhose so DH rigged another hose to the sink with duct tape. It leaked a bit, but it worked otherwise. I wouldn't suggest this method though. There are adapters online at places like yourwaterbirth .com and home improvement stores L owes etc.

[laohaire]

Just FWIW... and you know yourself best... I had my birthing pool on the 1st floor. The only bathroom in the house is on the 2nd floor, along with the bedrooms. I wondered about how that would fly, but it was fine. I went up and down stairs throughout my labor, though when I hit transition I didn't get out of the pool again until DD was born. I was helped out of the pool when she was born (by my husband and midwife) because I was really shaky - I had been pushing for 6 hours! DH and I sat on the (towel-lined) sofa for a while to "meet" DD. But after a while, the midwife was concerned that 3rd stage wasn't happening, and then I spent the next 3 hours actively trying to get my placenta out. Including going up stairs, sitting on the toilet, sitting on the birth stool, etc. 3 hours. And THEN we went to the ER to get me all stitched up. But I was fine, and going up and down the stairs was the least of my issues. I'm quite sure my husband was extremely careful to assist me though.

If I had a lot of blood loss, I could see going up the stairs to be an issue, but at that point I would say that the stairs weren't the issue per se.

I also decided beforehand that I was willing to pee in the pool (which didn't end up happening, though). And while I was pushing, I pooped. That's expected, and it was a lovely job for the midwife's assistant to deal with, lol. So the bathroom wasn't a huge deal.

[lunarlady]

I ended up hooking the hose to the shower head sprayer. (A shower head on the end of a short hose.) It would have been easier to hook it to the sink, but I was worried it would take forever to fill the tub using water from the sink, and so I went for the shower connection. It was really easy and I just bought a little brass adapter at Lowes.

The best way to do it is to take off the peice where you want to screw in the hose. This would be the airator off the sink, or the shower head off your shower. Take that with you to the store so you can match the size and thread pattern. The hoses are standard, so that is easy. I want to say the adaptor was about $5 (US). Good luck!

[Beccasteve03]

You can get an adaptor at Home Depot or Lowes for less than $6. I just asked one of the guys at Home Depot for "something so I could hook a garden hose to the shower." He looked at me a little strange, but he found it right away and they had lots!
Hubby said it was easy to use, just took off the showerhead and attached the adaptor and hose. Easy as pie!