All About Water Birth
What is Water Birth?
Water birth is an especially popular mode of birth for women choosing community birth, be it at home or in a birth centre. Most women chose the water route due to the soothing nature of water immersion and they use it as a tool to get through labor more comfortably.
Most women who birth in water will not require any other form of pain relief as the water naturally enhances the body’s optimal hormonal state in labor and allow a woman to fully enter what has been described as ‘laborland’, otherwise known as ‘being in the zone’.
For the uninitiated, a water birth involves the laboring mother being immersed in deep warm water in a birth pool and the baby is born through the water into the mother’s arms.
Benefits of Water Birth
Water birth has been thoroughly studied and has been found to be safe for mother and baby. In addition to being safe, mothers report many positive effects from delivering in water.
From my midwifery experience, I find that delivery in water is gentle on the mother’s body as she can allow herself to totally relax as it enables her body to peacefully float in the water between contractions. Water is a natural de-stressor, so women are genuinely calmer in the water. Some research has shown that water birth babies are calmer too as their transition to air breathing was less abrupt and they were born into a gentle atmosphere.
Additionally, water often helps shorten labor. As the woman is buoyant, she can move around and change positions easily which helps labor to progress. Furthermore, water soothes the perineum as the baby is being born, reducing pain which allows mothers to birth their babies more gently. This factor together with the beneficial effects of the warm water on the perineal tissues, prevents perineal tearing for most mothers.
A great bonus of waterbirth is the easy post birth clean-up as most of the birthy stuff is contained in the pool and is easily disposed of.
As part of our monthly meetings, I encourage discussions around the optimal use of the birth pool and in which situations it is less advisable. Getting a small amount of extra equipment and supplies for a water birth is a simple task and can make your birth experience more pleasurable whilst still remaining safe.
Neonatal outcomes with water birth: a systematic review and meta-analysis
J Vanderlaan, PJ Hall, MJ Lewitt – Midwifery, 2018 – Elsevier
For more information about pool rental and other resources for water birth, please visit our Resources page.