• Who cleans up after a homebirth?

    Date: 2011.02.13 | Category: Homebirth | Tags: ,

    Quite a few people see clean up immediately following birth as an obstacle to having a homebirth. Indeed, very few women would want to scrub the floor and clean up blood stains right after welcoming their new baby – those first few very special moments should be dedicated to the baby, not to cleaning up. Fortunately, hardly any new mother actually cleans up herself after giving birth. Midwives usually clean up after a birth they attended. If you are planning an unassisted homebirth, you probably won’t be the one to clean up either. And then, there are a few proactive steps you can take during labor and birth to avoid a big mess, too.

    For homebirth midwives, doing a basic clean-up following a birth is very common. Of course, families should not expect their midwife to clean their whole home, but birth-related messes are usually taken care of. Following my daughter’s birth, our midwife cleaned up blood and remaining messes, threw the plastic sheet that covered the bed into the trash, and disposed of the placenta too. She also helped me to take a shower. All I had to do was throw some towels into the washing machine. Other women who have given birth at home attended by a midwife have much the same experience – it seems to be generally understood that the midwife or midwives with play a part in cleaning up after the birth.

    Those who are planning an unassisted homebirth usually enlist their partner, or a friend or relative, to take care of any cleaning that is required after the birth. Birth can be a messy business, but in my personal experience it is much less so than you might expect if you have never given birth. The list of bodily substances that can potentially turn up during labor and birth is long – amniotic fluid, blood, vomit, urine, and feces. But although all of these might well be “released” at some point during labor and birth, that does not mean they will all be in places that require subsequent clean-up. Here is are some things laboring moms can do to limit the mess. Some of these are often intuitive, while others need some advance planning.

    • Many homebirth moms either give birth in a birth pool, or spend some of their labor there. Any mess that accumulates there can simply be drained away.
    • The toilet is a great place to labor for lots of mothers. Many find that the position they are in when sitting on the toilet helps them cope with contractions. Often, the body cleans itself out during early labor, and diarrhea is frequent experienced during the early stages. When your water breaks into the toilet, as happened for me, there is little to clean up.
    • If you are considering giving birth on your bed, a large sheet of plastic, a shower curtain, or chux pads, can serve as a protective layer. After the birth, you can simply discard these.
    • Some families use large amounts of towels. These can normally simply be washed after the birth. Remember that blood-stained clothes or towels need to be soaked in cold water first, if you are hoping to remove the stains.
    • Keep a bucket around in case you feel like vomiting. Throwing up is extremely common during transition.
    • Having a bowl to put the placenta into as soon as it is born will help limit the amount of blood you need to clean up. In fact, the delivery of the placenta is the only time that blood will come out, because the placenta needs to separate from the uterine wall. You can even sit in the tub, over a bowl, or sitz bath if you are expecting the placenta to come out soon.