Birth: Water
The idea of giving birth underwater was pioneered by Igor Tjarkovsky, a Soviet researcher and swimming instructor, in 1960. He has helped hundreds of women give birth underwater in a tank of warm water.
In 1977 a French obstetrician Michel Odent introduced mothers to a pool of warm water so that they could relax in labour and not feel inhibited; this also helped for pain relief. Some women decided to stay in the pool to give birth, and over the next 5-6 years thousands of women used the pool during labour.
By 1983 hundreds of women had given birth in water. In the 1980s waterbirth had spread across the world from France to America. By 1987 approx. 3,000 babies had been born underwater. At the garden hospital in London, Dr. Yehudi Gordon stopped giving pethidine to women in labour, warm water has taken its place.
Known benefits of water labour and waterbirth
- Facilitates mobility-enables the mother to assume any comfortable position for labor and birth
- Speeds up labor
- Reduces blood pressure
- Gives mother more feelings of control
- Provides significant pain relief
- Promotes relaxation
- Conserves her energy
- Reduces the need for drugs and interventions
- Gives mother a private protected space
- Reduces perineal trauma and eliminates episiotomies
- Reduces cesarean section rates
- Is highly rated by mothers - typically stating they would consider giving birth in water again
- Is highly rated by experienced providers
- Encourages an easier birth for mother and a gentler welcome for baby
Placing a pool of water in a birth room changes the atmosphere immediately. Voices get softer, the mother stays calmer and everyone becomes less stressed. The effect of buoyancy that deep water immersion creates allows spontaneous movement of the mother. No one has to help the mother get into a new position. She moves as her body and the position of the baby dictate. Movement helps open the pelvis, allowing the baby to descend.
When a woman in labor relaxes in a warm deep bath, free from gravity’s pull on her body, with sensory stimulation reduced; her body is less likely to secrete stress-related hormones. This allows her body to produce the pain inhibitors-endorphins-that complement labor. Noradrenaline and catecholamines, the hormones that are released during stress, actually raise the blood pressure and can inhibit or slow labor. A laboring woman, who is able to relax physically, is able to relax mentally as well. Many women, midwives, and doctors acknowledge the analgesic effect of water. Thousands of these mothers state they would never be able to consider laboring without water again.
What prevents baby from breathing under water?
There are four main factors that prevent the baby from inhaling water at the time of birth:
- Prostaglandin E2 levels from the placenta which causes a slowing down or stopping of the fetal breathing movements. When the baby is born and the Prostaglandin level is still high, the baby's muscles for breathing simply don't work, thus engaging the first inhibitory response.
- Babies are born experiencing mild hypoxia or lack of oxygen. Hypoxia causes apnea and swallowing, not breathing or gasping.
- Water is a hypotonic solution and lung fluids present in the fetus are hypertonic. So, even if water were to travel in past the larynx, they could not pass into the lungs based on the fact that hypertonic solutions are denser and prevent hypotonic solutions from merging or coming into their presence.
- The last important inhibitory factor is the Dive Reflex and revolves around the larynx. The larynx is covered all over with chemoreceptors or taste buds. The larynx has five times as many as taste buds as the whole surface of the tongue. So, when a solution hits the back of the throat, passing the larynx, the taste buds interprets what substance it is and the glottis automatically closes and the solution is then swallowed, not inhaled.