water purification for waterbirth

[scifimama]

the pipes at my mom's house (where i'll be having my birth) are really old and yucky. the house is about 100 years old. will the impurities in these old pipes be harmful to the baby or me if i labor or birth in the water? does anybody know of a way to purify the water without boiling 100 gallons?!?

[nashvillemidwife]

As far as "will it hurt me?", I assume you don't drink it? That's kind of my litmus test for judging: if it's safe to drink, it's safe to birth in.

Sorry, I don't have an answer to your other question.

[steph117]

One suggestion - use a shower filter.

We use a Sprite high-output shower filter in our shower & LOVE it; they're designed for hot water, so for our HB, we purchased one without a shower head, & we're going to attach the RV hose directly to that. That way the water that flows into our tub will be filtered through the shower filter - it filters out lead, sediments, etc. There are other brands of shower filters; we got this one because we're familiar with it. Here's where we got ours.

[scifimama]

thanks so much. i'll definitely check those out!

[smokeylo]

you can add salt to counteract germies.... i have aquarium salt i plan to use!