Childbirth (4/4)

Welcome to the first blog of the new year!

First of all, of course, we wish everyone all the best, we hope all your dreams come true this year and of course wish everyone a very fruitful year. Meanwhile, this year's first baby has already been born and, like Maas, it was born in a bath. Are you also hesitating about a bath birth and not sure what to imagine? Then read on. Because I am going to take you through the preparations we made for a bath birth at home. We have two birthing baths for rent at the practice, so I didn't have to go looking for one. Besides the delivery bath, you also buy a box containing all kinds of disposables. These include the inner cover for the bath (so the real bath never comes into contact with water), the hose to fill and empty the bath, a submersible pump to empty the bath again, an under sheet for the bath and gloves for the midwife. The bath itself looks like this:

The bath is not yet fully filled with air, otherwise you won't get the inner sleeve over the bath. So in this photo, the inner cover is not yet on top. As you can see, the bath has handles in several places so you can easily assume different positions. Hydration has also been considered, as there is a cup holder in the bath. Furthermore, the bath comes with fittings for the tap, so there is a fitting for every tap, so you don't have to look for one yourself! Very handy. The bath is very easy to set up and actually ready to fill within 10 minutes. Another thing to think about when giving birth in the bath is a place next to the bath where you can lie comfortably. This is necessary for when you get out of the bath after giving birth. It's often too much to walk straight up the stairs to the bedroom at that point, for example, so it's handy to have a place next to the bath too. For us, this was the sofa. Over this we put plastic and a waterproof mattress protector. This is what it looked like for us:

Next to the bath was our kitchen table so Myrthe also had her things easily to hand. Handy to know, we are all prepared for a bath birth, so our doptone is waterproof and we can just listen to the baby's heart in the bath. After delivery, the bath is easily cleaned up again. It comes with a submersible pump with a garden hose, so you can easily empty the bath in a drain in the garden or in the toilet. When the bath is empty, you remove the inner cover and throw it away. The bath is then drained and folded back up to fit into the rucksack. It seems like a lot of work at first, but everything is designed to be very easy. If you have any more questions about bath birth or about the bath itself, feel free to ask at the consultation hour or leave a comment on facebook or instagram.