Birthing pools at Inverurie Maternity Unit to re-open
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Extensive works to address complex water quality issues affecting the use of birthing pools at Inverurie Community Maternity Unit have been successful and the pools are being made available to families once again.
Associate Director of Midwifery for NHS Grampian, Katie Colville explains: “We are now in the process of providing all team members with refresher training on supporting water births and will be able to offer the use of the pools to families from Monday, January 29.
“As caring professionals we’re keen to offer the use of birthing pools to women across Grampian and we recognise how valued these are as a choice for women in their birthing plans.
"We are grateful to a number of partners for their extensive work alongside our own teams to trial various mitigation measures over an extended period of time to address complex water quality issues.
"This has included a significant programme of repair works and we now have a working solution.
“Birthing pool facilities also remain available at Dr Gray's Hospital in Elgin and at Peterhead Maternity Unit.
"With five birthing pools now available across Grampian, teams are happy to support families from any local area who may wish to use these facilities.
"Teams are also more than happy to support families exploring the option of hiring a pool themselves when women are planning to birth at home.”
At this time, work continues to explore the infrastructure issues within the birthing pool room in the Midwives Unit at Aberdeen Maternity Hospital. Anyone with concerns about their options for place of birth is encouraged to discuss these with their midwife.
An explainer document about birthing pool provision has been updated on NHS Grampian’s Birth In Grampian website.
Welcoming the news Aberdeenshire MSP Gillian Martin said: “Many families have had a long and anxious wait to find out whether they would have the option of using the birthing pools at the Inverurie Community Maternity Unit.
“I am both pleased and relieved for expectant mothers that this will now be an available following extensive work by NHS Grampian to fix this issue.
“We know the pandemic had a huge knock-on effect to many services including maternity and I am glad the birthing pools will be in use once again for families at such a special and exciting time in their lives.”
