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Another barrier to water births?

The topic of waterbirth was on the agenda yesterday with the group of midwives in Leeds. One if the videos I showed was a home water birth, “The Art of Birth”, and I was primarily using it to remind us of the profound effect that birth can have on fathers.

After it was shown, the comment was made that it was nice that this woman was able to use the bath in her own home - that in her Trust, the policy was that any home water births had to occur in a specially hired pool. It was forbidden for a midwife to assist a woman birth in her own bathtub. This was very surprising - I had never heard of this regulation before. The reason given for this policy was the issue of infection control.....!

I wondered about the rationale for this policy. Surely the home bathtub would not pose a problem for the woman - after all, any bacteria that were present would belong to her and her family. Perhaps the safety of the midwives was the issue here - exposing midwives to someone else’s bacterial flora could present a problem, but midwives wear gloves and the water will dilute any bacteria, reducing any risk (water births for women who are HIV positive, for example, are quite safe for the midwives, according to the research). Handling issues would be no different - a midwife would have to bend just as much for a bathtub as she would for a pool.

Perhaps it is a move to make sure that the pool hire people will stay in business. It will certainly cost the family money to get a pool in place and require them to find a suitable area with strong floors, access to drainage etc. If the family bathroom cannot be used and there is nowhere else suitable for installing a pool, then some women might miss out on their wish for a home water birth.

Is this another example of silly bureaucratic measures designed to run our lives for us?

Posted by andrea at October 14, 2004 12:59 AM

Comments

Hmmmm, that's so weird, I watched "The Art of Birth" a few times just before I gave birth last week in WATER. I had a waterbirth at our fabulous Birthing Centre here in Adelaide with the Midwifery Group Practice, in their big SPA tub, I would imagine it would be more likely to have hygiene probs in a well used public tub rather than one's own personal tub at home...? Mind Boggles...? Why would it be OK to have so many waterbirths in the tubs in the Women's and Children's Hospital but not at home in your own tub...? If my house was built I would have done it at home in my new Spa Bath!

Posted by: Helen on October 15, 2004 01:08 AM

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