YAPH wrote:
On Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:33:09 -0700, n0tail wrote:

If you want to know more, this site expains it much better than I
ever could: http://www.homebirth.org.uk/

Pretty good site, but I found myself twitching for the Edit button to
correct some of the plumbing-related errors!

FWIW what was useful with our home waterbirth was having a length of
garden hose to syphon out water with it and vacuum out the little Mr
Hankies that appeared in it while SO was straining (I guess it's hard
to control what comes out of one orifice when you're trying to get a
baby's head out of the one next door!). The hose should obviously be
clean, preferably sterile, so maybe a new one, or soaked in bleach
before use. We simply ran the far end out of the back door so its end
was lower than the bottom of the pool, then to use it my job was to
submerge the pool end plus an extra 3-4 feet of it into the pool, put
my thumb over the end then draw the extra length back over the edge
and take my thumb off. The water in the extra length (now outside the
pool and running away from it) is enough to start a syphon action
sucking water out continuously. As I say you can use it as a vacuum
or just to take some water out if the level's too high or to make
room to top up with some more hot water. As soon as you raise the
pool end above the water the syphon stops.

Funnily enough I have no recollection at all of where I took the hot
and cold fill connections from, but if I were doing it again I might
run lengths of (sterile) garden hose from hot and cold washing machine
connections, or make temporary connections into the pipework to e.g.
washbasin taps with push-fit (e.g. Speedfit) plumbing connectors
which can be easily reconfigured back to a normal arrangement when no
longer needed. In our case I think I had them connected somehow off a
washbasin and were controlled from there, but with good quality hoses
and secure connections to fixed pipework one could always have hot
and cold "taps" (e.g. handle-operated valves) at the pool itself.

That must be the perfect example of why home births are a bad idea.


--
Dave - The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk