What is “water birth?”
“Water birth” is the use of a heated water bath or pool by a laboring woman during labor and birth.
'	Many women in labor find that being in water helps them relax and helps relieve pain. Some women prefer to stay in water at the time of birth and deliver their baby in the tub or pool. Others stay in water only part of the time during the labor and choose to birth their babies on land. How did water birth first get started? The first recorded water birth was in 1803 in France. According to the story, a woman who had been in labor for 48 hours climbed into a tub of hot water to relax and her baby was born shortly afterward. Not much is mentioned again about the technique until the 1960’s when a Russian scientist, Igor Charcovsky, began experimenting with the use of warm water immersion for women in labor to see how it affected their labor, the birth, and newborn behavior. Then in the late 1970’s through the 1980’s various obstetric practitioners began using warm water baths for laboring and birthing women. Dr. Michel Odent in France and Dr. Michael Rosenthal in California collected information about its effects and women who had experienced it told their stories. Interest in the idea gradually spread around the world.

Most women relax as soon as they enter the warm water. It lowers adrenalin and encourages endorphins, the hormones that are the bodies own pain relievers. The water supports the weight of the baby and eases the many aches and pains of late pregnancy helping the mother to relax so the endorphin level rises. The support of the water allows the mother to adopt any position which she finds comfortable without getting too tired. Being in water also helps to soften the perineum and makes it easier to be born without tearing or needing an episiotomy and therefore not stitches.

Soaking in a tub of water to ease labor is inviting to most women. For women who find water soothing and comfortable during labor, they usually want to give birth in water. However, laboring in water does more than merely relax and comfort the woman. Resting in a warm tub of water helps facilitate the progression of the latter stages of labor. Many women report a sensation like an “energy surge” that moves through them as soon as they step into water. While a woman in labor relaxes in a warm pool, free from gravity’s pull on her body, and with sensory stimulation reduced, her body is less likely to secrete stress-related hormones. This allows her body to produce the pain-inhibitors, endorphins, which compliment labor.

Being more relaxed physically, a laboring woman is able to relax mentally. Many women, midwives, and doctors acknowledge the analgesic effect of water. Women achieve a level of comfort in the water that in turn reduces their levels of fear and stress. Women’s perception of pain is greatly influenced by their levels of anxiety. When labor becomes physically easier, a woman’s ability to calmly concentrate is improved, and she is able to focus inward on the birth process.

The ease of the mother who labors and gives birth in water becomes the ease of the child who is born in the water. For the baby…the baby has been in amniotic water through pregnancy and being born in water is a gentle transition from the womb to your loving arms, water is familiar to the baby and helps him to feel more secure. The baby emerges into the water and is “caught” either by the mother herself or the birth attendant. In the water, the child has freedom of movement within familiar fluid surroundings. A baby’s limb’s can also unfold with greater ease during those first moments when he leaves his mother’s body and enters the water. The water offers a familiar comfort after the stress of birth, reassuring the child and allowing his bodily systems time to organize.
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