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Disposable Birth Pool Plugs? No!

Last week we had a request to supply a box of single-use, disposable birth pool plugs for a hospital birth pool.   We were surprised to hear that any Trusts were using conventional bath plugs in their birth pools. Here’s why. 

Cleaning a bath plug and chain

Birth pool plugs are not permitted to have chains on them (HTM64 Health Technical Memorandum). This is because you can’t attach the other end of the chain to anything because of the cleaning challenges, and the chain itself is also just another crevice where bacteria may breed. In theory, the plug chains are also a ligature risk.

Access to the birth pool plug by midwives

After I bath my children, I ask them to pull the plug out as I’m not keen on dirty bath suds up to my elbow! A hospital birth pool is MUCH deeper than even my children insist on. Leaning in to pull out the plug, probably right up to the midwife’s shoulder, through water which is likely to be contaminated with faeces and blood, isn’t ideal. While the midwife has already had their hands in the water, it’s not the same as trying to reach all the way down and not contaminate their uniform sleeves. Some Trusts have proposed providing the midwives with gauntlet gloves, but then there is the rigmarole of cleaning them, finding them, having pairs that fit everyone’s arm length… Far better to avoid the situation at all and not have disposable birth pool plugs!

Finding the plugs!

We still travel with a travellers’ emergency bath plug as many’s the time that we’ve ended up in a hotel or holiday home with no bath plug in sight. Imagine the challenge of trying to track plugs through the cleaning process and back again! So the obvious answer appears to be the disposable birth pool plugs that we at Aquabirths were asked to supply, but who will keep an eye on how many are left and when they need to be re-ordered? And of course, with a disposable item, there is always the…

Eco considerations

Every Little Counts and all that, and everything we can do to try to reduce the impact on our environment makes an impact. If we can move away from disposable items. Generally, disposable items in the NHS are incinerated, with serious ecological impacts. Disposable birth pool plugs are not necessary. There’s a much better solution…

Aquabirths’ Birth Pool Plug Solution!

Aquabirths do not supply hospital birth pools with disposable plugs. Our birth pools come with built in grated wastes and an integrated valve to stop water flowing out, or to release it after the birth. To “plug” or “unplug” the birth pool the midwife simply needs to open the valve!

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Choices-in-Childbirth January 2018

#Waterbirth – what can we learn from each other? Free Softbirths Mini Birth Couch, CFM: nothing but damage? A Year in Doula-ing, Women’s Art & News

https://mailchi.mp/ac16926a98f0/b0cx24sjnh-3125301?e=2ded6ce75b

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Choices for Midwives January and February 2018

 

A New Midwifery Regulator? Bedside re-sus on the cord, Hungary jails Midwife Agnes, Birth Trauma feedback through theatre, Worldwide Midwifery News

https://mailchi.mp/cd4d1bb1b2b7/jq5x2zqwmx-3125929?e=957a92dac2

 

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Installing a Birthing Bath

professionally installed birthing pool

There is no mystery to installing a birthing bath.  In may ways they are simpler than domestic baths because our baths are one-piece Single -Surface baths.  Midwives designed the bath from the top down, and plumbers designed it from the bottom up!

Usually, the bath arrives into a near-finished room.  Plumbing should already been in place behind an IPS panel.  All that should be visible is a small piece of 40mm solvent weld pipe protruding from the very bottom of the IPS (or no more than 25mm from the floor).  Taps are in place by this stage too.

In terms of taps, we don’t recommend any, but have a short guide sheet (pdf).  We know taps from the Ideal Bluebook range are commonly used.  For example, one Trust repeatedly favoured using two of the following so that there was a double supply of mixed supply hot water.  The reason being that 22mm taps that are HTM compliant are very difficult to source and a 15mm tap would take too long to fill the bath.  http://www.idealspec.co.uk/catalogue/bluebook/brassware/contract/contour-21/contour-21-single-control-mixer-and-15-23cm-spout_p351.html

Rada Sensor taps are also very popular.

  Looking in through the hatch, the finished pipe work should look like this.  The valve should be as close to the hatch door as possible so that the midwives are not having to reach right in under the bath.  The valve is supplied with the bath.  The pipe either side of the valve must be clamped to support the valve and to stop the pipework being twisted by the constant use of the valve.

Anyway, first things first.  This is a 2-3 person job – you’ll see why.  When we install a bath, we put down lots of padding and tip the bath on its side onto the padding.  This way, we can, using a long level or straight edge, adjust the feet to match the base of the pool.  The bath is designed to sit both on the basal rim of the bath and on the feet.  This is why our baths are so good at spreading the load.  If you don’t think you can put the pool on its side without scratching it, don’t – the warranty doesn’t cover it.

It is also easier to silicone in place the waste and, if ordered, the LED lights. The latter are fitted in the same way as a waste – a backnut and a lot of silicone!  Once all that’s done, carefully turn the bath back onto its base.

Offer up the end of the bath to the IPS.  This way, you’ll see where the waste pipe will come through the end of the bath.  mark and drill it out.

First to go on the tail of the waste is an elbow and the waterless trap.  The Hepworth vO is a good choice but other versions are now available.  Do  not use a U-bend or shower trap.  They hold water which will just become a source of infection issues.

ideal pipe bends
Avoid sudden 90 degree corners in the pipe run.

 

 

Next comes the valve and the remaining piperun to join on to the piece of 40mm pipe protruding through the base of the IPS (and through the end of the bath you’ve just drilled!).  Don’t glue the pipework before you’ve tried it all in place.  You may want to mark where the clamps either side of the valve are to go.  It is easier to pull the bath back, drill and then put it in place.  Finish the pipework.

Screw the bath to the IPS and, through flanges on the base in the hatch area, to the floor.  Silicone round.

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Birth Baths in the Netherlands – Geboortebaden in Nederland

 

Aquabirths birthing baths have been installed in several hospitals across the Netherlands such as the Saint Lucas Andreas in Amsterdam.  Now we have an agent/distributor in the Netherlands.  We’ve partnered with the established Dutch company VAB so that customers in the Netherlands can discuss the baths and get support locally.  Their Mobypool range is here.  You can contact Maks and Hans here.

Also, we now price our baths in Euros and pounds so that customers in the rest of the EU can choose the currency that suits them.

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Free Mini Birth Couch Kit with Birthing Pool

Birthing Couch Kit for Smaller Birth Rooms

The SoftBirth birthing couch kit has a new little sis!  A shorter version for smaller rooms at a smaller price.  A HoM asked us to design a smaller birth couch kit for smaller rooms, so we did and will even fit in the back of a small hatchback. Anyway, with all our birth couches we offer very large discounts when more than one of the same couch is bought. So, this is £600+VAT but 3 or more would be at £500 each.  As with the larger SoftBirth couch, this is a kit – the stool and kneeler are included.  The mini is also FREE with Aquabirths’ Canberra, Venus and Heart-shaped birth baths.

Mini birth couch kit

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Follow Ruth Weston’s BornStroppy Blog

ABOUT RUTH AND ‘BORNSTROPPY’

Ruth Weston, BornstroppyBiog:

Ruth Weston mother, business woman, lactivist. Ruth is the mother of five children, four born at home and in water. She liked her waterbirths so much she took over Aquabirths as a small Yorkshire birth pool hire firm 15 years ago.

Since then she and her husband have grown the business, now, with midwives and doulas, designing pools and soft furniture for the NHS and around the world.

Ruth is passionate about women having good care and a good birth: she set up  ‘Choices in Childbirth’ childbirth group in her home 14 years ago which became a network of similar groups across Yorkshire and beyond with a regular monthly E-newsletter which you can subscribe to.

Ruth helped set up the MSLC in Bradford and Airedale and became its first chair. Ruth is now turning her considerable determination and energy to the delivery of continuity of midwifery carer and the reform of regulation for midwives – structural reforms she believes necessary for the delivery of humane maternity care for women.

For 25 years now I’ve been campaigning along side others to improve women’s experience of childbirth. Part of my work has been to provide the means and equipment for better birthing experiences: that may be knowledge and training or it may birth room equipment.
If you would like to sign up the monthly newsletter ‘Choices in Childbirth’ or ‘Choices in Childbirth for Midwives’, fill in the form below. Or click on the image below.

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Bornstroppy RuthWeston

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Free BirthSoft Birthing Couch Kit

Aquabirths will include a free SoftBirth birthing couch kit with the Canberra, Venus and Heartshaped  models of our birth baths.  The SoftBirth birthing couch kit is usually £950 but is on offer at the moment at £795.  More details can be found at http://softbirth.com/ You can also copy-of-softbirth-birth-couchdownload their information flyer and spec sheet there too.  We’ve tried one out – it is very comfortable and unlike other couches, is not cumbersome and heavy.  The inter-changeable cushions make this a very flexible help for birthing and labouring mothers.  So, even if you’re not buying one of our birthing baths, you can still get it at the offer price.  http://softbirth.com/
couch-stool_01

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Corner Baths

We’ve had a bit of a flurry of requests for corner baths, mainly from export customers, so we thought we’d better write a short blog on them.

The short answer is, ‘yes, we do make them.’ They are an excellent option where space is a bit tight but the hospital still want to give a birthing mum the option of a water birth.  Sometimes, corner baths are avoided as the midwives want to be able to access the woman from as many parts of the bath as possible.

Our Dunoon model birthing bath is ideally suited to being used in a corner.  It is already designed specifically to be compact and fit in smaller rooms but to still give a labouring woman plenty of room to move and keep active during birth.  It does this by virtue of its rounded rectangular shape and by using space wisely so that it still has the capacity of a birth.

The Dunoon can be fitted in any position and doesn’t have to go in a corner but if you let us know when ordering, we can include an extra piece of trim (at no cost) so that you can have a neat finish against the corner walls.

Dunoon compact birth pool