Thanks for the tips Julie - would you mind coming to Sweden and being my doula for the next birth? :-)

Water birth is straight-out forbidden here, which is so strange as Sweden is so progressive in many other ways. They use some old anti-waterbirth research as justification, which means I would need to have a home birth to birthy baby in water - can you please talk me down from my fears - although I've had two relatively easy fast and straight-forward births, I've been concerned about the risks of not being close enough to medical help in an emergency

...I'm not even pregnant yet (nor do I even have my period back after 10.5 months, I'm pretty sure I'll have to stop BFing for 24 hours like I did for my last child). So it's a long way off....

Just putting myself out there



Glad to here the rrhoids are on their way out!

I just came from a lovely homebirth. The mama did not have a bath, (though she did have a birth pool). So instead of a post natal herbal bath, I made up the herbal mixture and put the concentrate in a jar. Then we would fill her peri-cleanse bottle (any squeezy bottle will do) about a quarter-full with the concentrated herbal liquid, then add hot tap water. The bottle would then be full of just-warm herbal liquid. She used this whenever she went to the toilet and it brought great relief. She had no tears but did have a slight graze and the warm herbal liquid was very soothing, and it does speed the healing.