[...] Recently the FDA seized an inventory of birth pools, claiming that they are unregistered medical devices.  Barbara Harper, founder of Waterbirth International shared this information on her Facebook page yesterday. This sent the blogosphere into panic mode with articles like Danielle’s “Ladies, Hold on to your kiddie pools!” [...]

[...] Ladies Hold On To Your Kiddie Pools! [...]

First, the rate of homebirth is NOT up 20% of the total amount of births in the United States. There is still less than 1% of the American public that is choosing to birth at home.

“From 2004 to 2008, the percentage of births occurring at home increased by 20 percent from 0.56 percent to 0.67 percent of United States births.”

Second, giving birth in a pool poses many risks. The water can be contaminated with deadly bacteria. Also, babies can inhale the water and suffer from pneumonia and even worse, death by drowning.

Third, no primates birth in water.

Luckily, the FDA cares about the safety of the baby and not about the mother’s birth experience.

These are rentable tubs, right?? Gee, why would the FDA care if women are giving birth in tubs and passing the tub around?? That sounds very UNsterile. The FDA is not going to start taking kiddie pools off the market nor are they going to try to prevent waterbirth. Advocates need to chill out on the paranoia. I doubt .67% of births are a huge worry of the FDA.

Um, all humans are primates.

Bambi, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the hospital beds where most women have their babies are actually REUSED over and over and over again. Far more often than a rentable birth tub–which, like a bed, can be and IS sterilized between uses. Furthermore, most women who use pools/tubs also use a disposable liner, which is far cleaner than virtually any surface in a hospital full of sick people. And Amanda, get your facts straight. Manda’s right. It is exposure to air that makes babies’ lungs start working; they don’t take their first breath until they hit air (they receive oxygen from the blood flowing from the placenta via the umbilical cord), so being born into water is no different than the amniotic fluid they’ve been living in for the entire pregnancy. And as for bacteria, hospitals contain far more deadly bacteria than any pool or tub a woman might use in the privacy of her own home. The FDA doesn’t care about anything but covering the butts of corporate medicine and treating us like we’re all too dumb to make our own healthcare decisions. It’s about control and having options. Women should care about having a choice in where they give birth–even if every choice doesn’t feel like one they personally would make. There’s a reason the mother-infant mortality rate in the U.S. is worse than any other industrialized country’s, and it has nothing to do with the women who have their babies at home.

Who is overseeing this sterilization process?? WHo oversees what chemicals are used?? How do they know that each mom is using a disposable liner?? Hospitals have certain cleaners they use in order to sterilize/disinfect.

Really, you girls are paranoid to the hilt. Want a water birth, use something else.

Another thing, if the federal government really wanted to go after homebirth, they would stop midwives. They would do much more than try to regulate birth pools. Sounds to me like Brabara doesn’t want to spend money or take any legal steps to have these registered. I thought only the ACOG cared about money!

@A Different Amy – Clean places? Like hospitals right? With all those infections and germs right?

so if we have a baby in 50+ gallons of water and the fluids from our body come out into the water with the baby who was just in these fluids it is deadly?
Wow then me and my 20 month old should be 6 ft under right now and my hubby and I should be taken to court for possible child endangerment……
and Bambi, the government has gone after midwives.. as of right now there are 2 states that it is illegal to have home birth.. I ask you this…. Why should we have government in every single part of our lives….and look at our c-section rate. I would LOVE to know of a few hospitals that will allow waterbirth.. I was told by a few OB’s and CNM’s that the cleaning people were not even cleaning the tubs at their hospital correctly so they had to ban waterbirth….
I am a doula and have been to MANY home birth waterbirths. not one homebirth mom was uneducated, but yet all of the hospital births the moms were uneducated and not given informed consent. a woman who has done research about her birth choices and the safety of the choices (good and bad) should be allowed to rent whatever the H she wants and birth wherever and whenever her body wants even if it is int he freaking OCEAN. it is her birth and her body!!!!

Also… Barbara isn’t the only supplier of birth tubs… so it would cost companies millions and tons of read tape to get this done.. and then parents would have to pay for the slack!!!
I think you need to do some research and stop attacking people…

amanda.. who in the world do you think delivered babies before doctors ????? I would love for you to tell me you have been to 100 births as a doula and seen every single one of the OB’s not look at their watch at 6 or 7 pm at night and call a section. or talk a mom into getting induced because they have plans that weekend.
Call your local L and D and ask them what their busiest day is.. I guarantee they will tell you a thurs or friday.. why you ask because of all the inductions and c-sections scheduled before the weekend. If OB’s are so great and they know what they have signed up for why would this be? I mean God forbid babies come when they are ready.. and not be forced out..
I think you should read a book “the thinking women’s guide to a better birth” by Henci goer.. u might be enlightened….
so how many babies have you had???

I’ll be having a water birth…in a HOSPITAL. *gasp* Water births can’t be that “out of the normal” if the hospital advocates them. And every medical professional will tell you hospitals are germ pits- sick people go to hospitals not healthy. Just a fact.

Women should be given choices- and those choices should be safe too. FDA should be offering the right to validate the import- seizures on claims of them being unregistered medical devices should be given the option to register. Period.

@Amanda – Do you know the number of mothers who end up with post operative infections in the hospital? Especially with cesarean deliveries? The numbers are not impressive at all.
Infection was one of my biggest fears when going into the hospital to have all of my children. Especially with the new drug resistant super bugs going around like MRSA.
Even hospital staff agree infection is a HUGE issue, EVEN in the labor and delivery units. Why? Because those same people who are emptying your garbage can, or cleaning your bathroom in the postpartum unit, are the same people cleaning the ICU bathrooms, or coming in contact with the linens of the patients with these serious infections.
You have the people delivering the food, social workers, and various staff members that move floor to floor and are not just on one floor like Nurses or OB/GYNs.

@Danielle What does having a C-section at the hospital have anything to do with waterbirths? Last I checked, C-sections were only available at the hospital.
On a side note, at the hospitals I have worked, the L&D unit has separate cleaning staff, social workers, and people that deliver food than the rest of the hospital.

MRSA is not a hospital bug. It is out on the community. Your baby has an 8X higher risk of dying from infection at home as they do in the hospital.

Henco Goer is nobody. She holds no special degrees. She is no more credible than any of us here.

Tonya, I’ve had 7 kids, 4 hospital births, 2 homebirths (last one my daughter died), and another hospital birth.

@ Stacie. Show me your data, your research, your facts that prove your claims. All you have done is spout classic NCB rthetoric. I have heard it before and I will hear it again. Next….

Ah, reading further I realized I have stumbled into Moron-i-con 2011. I don’t belong here. If you’ll excuse me.

Tara, srsly…i cnt undrstand u. r u 14?

MERSA lives everywhere friends. I’m going to go find some and kill myself because if YOU people are the majority, I don’t want to live anymore.

As with everything else the govt only gets involved when there is money concerned! Women want to give birth at home and its losing hospitals money which filters down to govt agencies. As usual the mighty dollar is more important than what’s right for moms and babies

@ Stacie A hospital birth would have saved her daughter. If an OB had done what that midwife did you’d have him by the balls –and until you lose a child I think it’s best you keep the cutsie sayings to yourself.

Saying “Bad things happen” is the easy way to keep your head in the sand. It takes real gumption to actually shut your face and stop the bad thing from happening in the first place.

I dont know… Tonya already went out on a limb and decided to announce that all homebirth mothers = educated and all hospital births = uneducated so why not go ahead Stacie and pass judgment on whether or not her baby would have lived in a hospital. Oh… wait… you already did that after you said you wouldnt “dare to speculate” I know,
I know you didnt come right out and say that but you sure did heavily imply it. You should feel ashamed throwing her story under your bus to try to prove a point on what? A kiddie pool?!?! Please try to think before you type a response like that in the future.

I only read about half the comments (it’s late, I’m tired) but I just wanted to comment on the “germs in hospitals” argument. My grandmother and father both died from complications from staph that they both contracted from a hospital. Super strains of staph are rampant in hospitals. Also, those who want a home birth are not turning their backs to science, there is no need to get snarky. Birth is a natural process. Women were having babies for centuries with out hospitals. Obviously, it’s not for everyone (obviously you) so just let women birth their babies how they want to.

The FDA is also going to have to come to every person’s home and rip their bathtub out of the wall because Ricki Lake (GASP!!!!!) had a baby in her freaking bathtub. That’s right! Her REGULAR BATHTUB! If I couldn’t have had my birth pool, I’d have birthed in a big ‘ol tub. Nice try, FDA. You don’t get to tell me where I push my baby out.

@Stacie. That midwife is still working! There is a problem when a midwife can make a mistake that kills a baby and still gets to deliver more. My personal goal is to have her stopped. I want to take her down. That is what I mean by actually doing something to stop bad things from happening. Where is your anger over this bad midwife. Why are we not calling for her to be stopped?

In many cases, saying that “babies just die” is making an excuse for bad care and not bothering to punish these women. If a mother came in and said her baby died in a hospital you would ask for more information as to what happened. If you’ll notice in this case you didn’t even bother to ask what had happened. That is what I mean. The next time you hear about a baby dying in a hospital I want you all to take that angry feeling and ask yourself “Why don’t I feel this way when I hear a story of a bad midwife? Are they not as deserving of this anger as an OB is?”

That is what bothers me. When people stand behind a movement so forcefully that they refuse to say “This is a BAD person and we need to stop her and make sure she is punished–midwife or not” Punishing bad apples is the only way to insure that midwifery is safe for ALL of us. These women MUST be removed from the system. Why will no one take action?

Enough is enough stop the government from taking away our rights.

I live in one of those states(Illinois) where it is illegal to give birth anywhere but a hospital, with the exception of an unexpected unnattended birth do to very fast labor, or a blizzard, etc. My first birth experience was awful, but it had everything to do with the OB, and nothing to do with the hospital setting. My second birth experience was wonderful. I was attended by A CNM, not an OB. Most practices in Illinois are a combination of CNMs and OBs who all deliver in a hospital. I’m not sure if the hospital I used offered water birth as I was not interested in that, but they did offer whirlpool tubs for laboring and encouraged laboring women to walk the halls as much as they want. On our tour of the hospital, the nurse made a huge point of the fact that they had a birthing stool available for deliveries. One of the CNMs fathers, who is a carpenter, actually made the birthing stool to order. It is possible to have a completely natural birth without undue pressure for interventions, in a hospital setting. I think it is more likely to happen in states where there is no home birth or birthing center options, because the midwives who support those kinds of practices work solely in the hospitals. The other plus side to this, is if something does go terribly wrong, you and your baby are already at the hospital and don’t lose precious minutes(minutes that can make the difference between life and death)in trasporting to the hospital.

Wow, some of these comments…I couldn’t finish reading them. Have none of you ever read or heard of Dr Odent? He’d been doing water births in France for years. A simple perusal of his work is a testament to the safety of water birth. Certainly safer than our 33% cesarean rate, and our ungodly, unjustifiable inductions rates. I feel better about that than I do about California’s maternal mortality rate, which has tripled in the last ten years and is my home state. Look at the stats for the Farm, Ina May’s birthing center. I get that not every women wants, or should, have a home birth. But to spout BS about how dangerous it is with nothing to back it up is wrong and disrespectful to those of us who have spent a lot of time looking into this. It’s also disrespectful to those of us who had a hospital birth, only to have their baby injured due to the overly aggressive management of labor, and it was so unnecessary. I sought alternatives to the hospital not because I was looking for a spiritual experience, but rather desired a safer environment for myself and my baby.

People in general are so quick to point out what could go wrong at home and the risks of home birth. What about the risks of hospital birth? Are those not valid? As stated, my son was injured at the hands of an induction happy OB and well meaning staff. This wouldn’t have happened had we been at home. My other two babies were born at home and caught by midwives.

Just wanted to make a point that I think only one other person has made – what about those of us who found the birthing pool invaluable for helping ease the pain of labor? I had a homebirth and I didn’t end up giving birth in the pool (I felt like I needed to be more solid when pushing), but spent several hours in it at the height of labor. I would really appreciate that option again next time so I don’t have to be in my bathroom the whole time just to get some pain relief. The FDA sucks for doing this.

I am tired of the government (mostly men) taking away my right to do what is right for me. What a crock of sh!t. And now some idiot is talking about freezing funds to resident hospitals so that they cannot train residents to perform abortions, D & C’s, etc. So no one would know how to save a woman if she had miscarried and did expel the baby? or if the baby was somehow endangering her health, i.e. ectopic pregnancy? Or if you were bleeding to death after delivery? Again, WTF?!!!!!

And when did this become a trial forum for midwives?

Anyway, the hospital carries as many and more germs than most areas. Every time I have a “surgery” I am warned that I could contract a staph infection. WTF?

The only man who belongs anywhere near my reproductive system is my husband.

Once again, government intervention to “fix” something that isn’t broken.

MRSA is rampant in many hospitals, and I think one PP pointed out that there is more than one strain. There’s a community strain and a far more deadly hospital-based strain, and I wouldn’t want that one anywhere near my baby if it could be prevented. The bed in the birthing center I gave birth in (twice) was certainly used and re-used, and the sheets and mattress covers were sterilized before I used them and after – as are birthing pools, even when used with liners.

A bad doctor – or a bad midwife – should indeed be pulled from practice. That has nothing – NOTHING – to do with the safety of birthing pools used at home, or in hospitals, or in birthing centers. Primates in the wild might not give birth in water, but they also don’t give birth in hospitals, on their backs, with their feet in stirrups, being told by doctors when to push, nor are their labors speeded up by OB/GYN’s on schedules when it gets to be suppertime. They give birth in the wild, often on DIRT, sometimes surrounded by and even assisted by other females who don’t have medical training. And if we’re going to compare primate birth to human birth should we not also discuss and compare infant mortality rates while we’re making big broad sweeping blanket statements? Geez.

Or can we admit that what other primates do or don’t do also bears little to no relevance to the FDA, motivated by Big Pharma and Big Agribiz, taking away more and more choice from everyone, not just pregnant women? Do you honestly think they investigate and seize EVERY shipment based on a claim from a complainant who “wished to remain anonymous” (per your link, Anya, which shows a document with a LOT of missing or incomplete information)?

And Anya, you’d do well to inform yourself as to the former employers of the head of the FDA: Monsanto is one of the more recent ones. :-( “Evil” may just be one of the nicer words used to describe the FDA today. The FDA may or may not get direct kickbacks from OB’s, but there is a HUGE conflict of interest when the head of the agency legislating food and medical stuff recently worked for a corporation which has not only insinuated itself into the majority of the world’s food supply but also has ties to Big Pharma.

LOL @ Anya, I like your grammatical correction :) Now that you pointed that out, I see it!

Ok – about the tubs: It is actually a shipment that was intended for the woman whom Barbara has put in charge of the BP shipments.. she would have then forwarded them on to the women who bought them.

Waterbirth International no longer receives nor sells pools. The 510K compliance that they are talking about is, in fact, a medical equipment classification and approval that the FDA is requesting.

It looks like those involved are working things out, they just found out today that they have an extension and won’t be required to have compliance by June 7th… the first thing is to find out if they simply need a new classification for non-medical birth equipment, if they TRULY need a medical stamp of approval (which will suck and be unfortunate because it isn’t doing anything medical and will take months/years to get), or if they can simply have the shipment released and all others oked once they have a better outline of what their intended use is.

This whole thing came about because women were starting to use the birth pools in a hospital setting, so someone tipped off the FDA that they wanted 510 compliance… the problem with this train of thought is that I am SURE the FDA hasn’t approved (for birth) the toilet that one of the mom’s I worked with (in the hospital) birthed on… or the shower that one of them birthed in, or even the rocking chair that one of the women were leaning over.

Where did the respectable birth professionals go? I don’t see many here; I see angry women caught in a cat fight. Who in the world would tell someone outright that they are an idiot for not agreeing with their point of view (especially when we were supposed to be discussing the freedom to make our own decisions)? Why is the word “duh” even on here, period?

It is the angry, ranting natural birth professionals that give the world of natural birth a bad name. If I didn’t know respectful natural birthing advocates personally, I’d be running to the nearest hospital right now. At least most OBs don’t call me an idiot to my face with a “duh” expression.

Think about what your’re doing, and please show some maturity. You’re supposed to be advocates for the women, not your ego.

We fired our DR 2 months before the due date and decided on a home birth. All I have to say to all of this is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ftv3z6OZcY&feature=feedwll

If you have always wished a swimming pool to the yard but weren’t certain where to begin, you aren’t by yourself. nUmerous households around the world very own swimming pools so it will be obvious why it …pool fill in