I am interested in Water Birth. What is is?
Water births have captured women’s imagination as a natural, safe and effective method of pain relief, as part of the trend towards natural childbirth. It’s an idea whose time has come. Midwives have known about the soothing effects of warm water for generations. The first medically recorded water birth took place in France in 1803. The birth attendants were at their wits’ end to know what to do to help a woman deliver after she had been in hard labor for forty-eight hours. One of the midwives suggested a warm bath, hoping that it might ease her pain. Almost as soon as the exhausted woman got into the bath the baby was born. Water birth seminars are being organized for midwives and doctors and more hospitals are providing facilities for water births. Research has begun to provide evidence and statistics. Women’s enthusiasm for water births is helping to make them more widely available and there’s growing official recognition that women should be offered the choice of using water in lab
