Tips for a Home Water Birth by Sarah Buchanan

Choosing to give birth at home in water is a viable and popular option for women. Here's a brief list written to help you prepare for a home water birth.

• Speak to your midwife about your wish to have a home water birth to make sure it’s an appropriate and safe option for you.
• The pool is going to be your largest expense so decide if you want to buy or hire a self inflating or fixed pool direct from a specialist company or source your own second hand pool.
• Practice putting up your pool and getting water from your chosen tap into it. This is not something you want to be worrying about when your labour begins.
• Labour ends when you have birthed the placenta either naturally or by having it managed by the midwives (if you don’t know about physiological, also called natural placenta birth, then I urge you to read about it) and this may be in or out of the water.

As a natural childbirth consultant, Sarah from Baby-Birth helps expecting women and their partners make informed choices about their pregnancy and birth. Sarah teaches Hypnobirthing, lectures about normal birth and founded Baby-Birth – an international website all about pregnancy and birth. To read the full article 'Water Birth at Home' please visit www.baby-birth.com