 The
water birth experience
Wallowing in deep warm water during
labour allows women to relax and gives much relief from the discomfort
of contractions. Sheila
Kitzinger explores women's experiences of water birth...
What happens?
The water birth experience
Midwives
Where to next?
What happens?
Women who have had a water birth like the feeling of being in their
own space where nobody is going to push a hypodermic syringe or
intravenous drip into them. And they enjoy moving freely in water.
Birth is a dance. It is not a matter of getting into different
positions and then being stuck in them, but of moving – gliding from
one position to another, circling, locking and tilting the pelvis,
kneeling forward and backward, and making rippling movements with the
whole spine.
The latest research into women’s experiences of water birth, is a
study of over 2,000 births in a Swiss hospital, published in the
medical journal, Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy. This hospital is
unusual. All mothers can choose between a birth stool, a wide,
comfortable bed, a rope hanging from the ceiling, a birth wheel they
can grasp, and a birth pool. Half of the women chose water birth. In a
questionnaire afterwards they marked a point on a line that went from
'dreadful' at one end to 'wonderful' at the other.
After a water birth most made a mark on the line close to 'wonderful'. Those who gave birth in bed marked points further
away. And the ones who used other methods selected points between
these.
The study shows that water birth is just as safe as more
conventional methods. Women use far fewer pain-killing drugs, are far
less likely to need an episiotomy (cut) or to bleed heavily, and birth
is equally safe for the baby.
The water birth experience
 "As soon as I got into the water I
felt safe, secure, free. The water cradled me. I wasn’t
heavy any longer – and I could move." The water needs to be deep enough to cover the top of the uterus if
you are to get adequate pain relief from it and be able to float.
"I resented being asked to get out of
the water to be examined." There is no need for this. There are under-water sonic aids to
listen to the baby. Or you can pop a condom in your birth kit, which
can be slipped over an ordinary sonic aid.
"I’d choose water birth again because
it reduces the pain and increases mobility."
She’s right. Pain turns into suffering if you feel trapped. Being
free to move helps you handle contractions your way.
"As my baby was born I wouldn’t have
dreamed of getting out. It would have interrupted the whole process.
It would have been like saying 'Oh, you can walk around as much as you
like, but as soon as you start labour you must lie down on your
back."
Or perhaps it’s like someone saying, just as you are about to
have an orgasm, "Hang on a moment! You can’t do that here. We
are going to move you now..
Mid wives
The more midwives help with
water births, the more they like them.
They often develop an understanding of birth that is denied other
midwives who work in hospitals where it is the practice to hurry birth
and tell the woman when and how to push.
When a midwife attends a water birth she watches and waits. She
does not intrude. She respects the spontaneous rhythms of labour. And
she learns about the normal physiology of birth in a way it is
impossible to do in any hospital where "active management"
is practised and everything is made to happen in a set period of time
by using drugs to stimulate the uterus.
"I had never seen a birth
like this before. The mother knew exactly what to do without being
prompted." When a woman can focus on the power of contractions, and work with
them, she responds in a smoothly co-ordinated way. Instead of fighting
her body, she 'listens' to what it is telling her.
"Water births are peaceful.
There’s no need for commanded pushing, the mothers seem much more
confident that what they are doing is right." An unforced second stage, without deliberate breath-holding and
straining, enables more oxygen to reach the baby.
"The perineum is usually
protected by the water. As a result an episiotomy is rarely
needed." A woman with an intact perineum avoids the pain of stitches and the
feeling that she is sitting on thorns for weeks after.
Where to next?
All pictures copyright Uwe Kitzinger.
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