What is Water Birth?
Water birth is a method of giving birth, which involves immersion in warm water.
This can take place at home or at a hospital that is equipped with a birth pool.
Proponents believe that this method is safe and provides many benefits for both mother and infant, including pain relief and a less traumatic birth experience for the baby.
History
During the 1960s, Soviet researcher Igor Charkovsky undertook considerable research into the safety and possible benefits of water birth in the Soviet Union.
In the late 1960s, French obstetrician Frederick Leboyer developed the practice of immersing newly-born infants in warm water to help ease the transition from the womb to the outside world, and to mitigate the effects of any possible birth trauma.
Another French obstetrician, Michel Odent, took Leboyer’s work further, using the warm-water birth pool for pain relief for the mother, and as a way to normalize the birth process. When some women refused to get out of the water to finish giving birth, Odent started researching the possible benefits for the baby of being born under water, as well as the potential problems in such births. By the late 1990s, thousands of women had given birth at Odent’s birthing center at Pithiviers, and the notion of water birth had spread to many other Western countries.
In the United States, water births happened through couples giving birth at home, but soon was introduced into the medical environment of hospitals and free-standing birth centers by midwives and obstetricians. In 1991, Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, New Hampshire became the first USA hospital to create a protocol for giving birth in water. By 2005, there were over 9000 hospitals in the US that had adopted such protocols.
More than three-quarters of all National Health Service hospitals in the UK provide this option for laboring women.
Research
Considerable research has been undertaken into the safety of water birth. Two of the most prolific researchers have been Michel Odent and the American obstetrician Michael Rosenthal. Dianne Garland, a midwife in the UK, has focused on gathering research through the National Health Service system, and has published a book called, Waterbirth: An Attitude to Care. In the US, Barbara Harper, a nurse and childbirth educator, has explored waterbirth throughout the world, and chronicled the history and current use of waterbirth in dozens of countries in her book, Gentle Birth Choices. Harper has compiled an extensive bibliography of research on the subject, which can be seen at the website for Waterbirth International.
Hypothesis of origin
David Attenborough has linked the claimed benefits of water birth to the aquatic ape hypothesis. This hypothesis is controversial but suggests that proto-humans had a more aquatic existence. The proponents of the theory point to several anatomical differences between humans and apes. In particular, babies have much more subcutaneous fat than apes. The fat appears in the thirtieth week of pregnancy and continues increasing for the first year after birth. As well the insulation for a baby while its mother is in water, the additional buoyancy has been noted as another benefit of fat. Babies also float unaided.
Vernix Caseosa (the waxy or cheese-like white substance found coating the skin of newborn humans) has also been cited as further evidence, as the only other species in which it has been observed are marine mammals. Vernix is sometimes offered as supporting evidence for the aquatic ape hypothesis (AAH/AAT) that the reason for the divergence between the hominids and their ape-like relatives was due to a long semi-aquatic phase of history. No other land mammal, including other apes, produces vernix-coated neonates; in contrast, some sea mammals, including the harbour seal, do.
Source: Wikipedia/Water Birth
Preparing for a Water Birth at Home
The Benefits of Water during Labour & Birthing
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