During my homebirth i had a bath for a couple of hours but to be honest i DO have baths for a couple of hours sometimes, and it wasn't a birthpool (bigger) or substantially longer, so delineating that particular bath and saying it was a labour "cost" to the environment seems fake. I birthed on a shower curtain which is hanging now in my bathroom as a shower curtain. We used our own freshly washed and tumble-dried towels which we also washed for the birth, for me to sleep on after (to catch milk and blood) which were all reusable of course (and i laundered at 40C, not 60C, for everything, even baby clothes, i never hot-wash unless Smee has had a vomiting bug). So birth was a heavy washing week but not like CRAZY heavy, just a few extra loads.

Here's a thought - do the swabs and packing used during a c-section get balanced out because the mother will probably use less maternity pads afterwards...?

Bx