Labour and birth in water. Temperature of pool is important.

EDITOR,--Fiona Alderdice and colleagues reported on the safety of labour and birth in water and recommended that information about such practices should be collected routinely as part of local audit.1 We have audited 112 case records selected by hospital number sequence from those of the 353 women who either laboured or delivered in a birthing pool in our unit between January 1990 and December 1993. The mean cervical dilatation on entry to the pool was 4.8 (SD 2.0) cm (range 1-10). The time spent in the pool ranged from 10 minutes to a total of 13 hours 25 minutes (mean 2 hours 28 minutes). Fifty one (46%) women delivered in the pool while …