RE: [ozmidwifery] Fw: water bath preferences

[Mary Murphy]

As a midwife on a homebirth program that attends 62% water births, I have good knowledge about baths suitable for water labour and birth.  We have portable, demountable baths that have new liners for each client.  They are flexible in size, are about 4-5ft radius and 2 ft high.  (120- 180cm X 60cms)  The flexibility is size is because we can add or remove the 12mm x 69cms panels.  Women often use their own in-built ones in their bathrooms.  The 3 corner spa ones are great IF they have no seats or ledges and are as close to 60cms deep as possible.  This is because it allows women plenty of space to spread their legs. The majority of women who use round or triangular tubs choose the spread knees, kneeling, leaning forward on the sides of the bath position.  Physiologically this is a marvelous position to labour and birth. I have found the domestic triangular tubs with good depth to be very suitable.  It is important to have some section where the woman can lean forward over the edge of the bath without hitting their head on a wall.   I noticed in the video “art of Birth”, those women in the more rectangular tubs seemed to have no option except to lie down or semi- sit.  The FBC at KEMH has a wonderful tub which is rectangular bath about 1m wide at its narrowest.  It has the addition of “squat” bars near the taps and a shower head option which is wonderful for spraying on the back.  Unfortunately, they are not allowed to do water births, only water labours and “now you have to get out.” The 2 new baths in the main deliviery suite of KEMH have the more rectangular baths which are a little bit shallow and encourage the woman into the lying down postion.  The architects didn’t listen to the midwives either.  I hope this helps.  Cheers, Mary Murphy