Hot Water and Towels

In old movies you would always hear someone shout ‘get hot water and towels’ when a woman was in labour, it has been debated as to what the hot water and towels were actually for! Perhaps to occupy the least useful person and get them out of the way, or maybe towels to mop up and hot (boiling) water to sterilise things. Interestingly things really haven’t changed that much and in a recent poll asking local home birthing woman what items they would recommend for a home birth, both old towels and a birthing pool made it to the top of the list! (See below for the full list).