The HERstory of water birth
Water immersion for labour and birth is a well-established practice to promote relaxation, increase satisfaction of a woman’s birth experience, reduce pain, and to encourage a physiological labour and birth.
Modern birth pools are now available for water birth in homes, birth centers, and in hospitals. However, the practice of water birth isn’t modern at all, it's ancient!
Temples in Crete were created 4700 years ago by the Minoan people where women laboured and birthed in water.
The native American Chumash people have a history of women labouring in natural pools and warm shallow inlets.
Within the Hawaiian Islands, it is believed that thousands of generations have been birthed in water.
The picture below shows archeologists uncovering a stone birth pool in Ani (Turkey). The stone tub has a rectangular base with a length of 1.93 meters, a width of 1.40 meters, and a depth of 50 centimeters.
The work of Turkish scientist and poet Burhaneddin-i Anevi describes this pool as the place of his birth, in the year 1143. It is reported that the process of birth, for his mother, was very painful and she entered the Great Bath on the advice of a physician.
Archaeologists work at the bath found in Ani, Kars, eastern Türkiye, Sept. 6, 2022. (AA).
The first recorded account of a waterbirth in the modern history was in a village in France in 1803. After labouring for about 2 days a woman was helped into a warm bath by her doctor. This helped to soothe her and comfort her. It is said that her baby was born into the water an hour after she entered the bath. This story was documented in a French medical journal in 1805, but it wasn’t until much later that more research was done on waterbirth.
In the 1960s waterbirth caught the attention of a researcher who was interested in the brain development of babies. He installed a large glass tank in his home where many women gave birth.
French obstetrician Frederic Leboyer researched the effect of a traumatic birth on babies and concluded that children could be affected for life by the nature of their birth.
With this information and the growing interest in waterbirth, midwives and obstetricians began to facilitate water birth as a way of reducing the use of modern interventions in labour, which they were concerned were creating traumatic births for babies.
In 1977 obstetrician Michel Odent installed pools in a French hospital. His research was focused on the effect that environment has on the labouring woman. The pools he installed were used for pain relief, rest, to help facilitate the birth process, and to reduce the need for drugs, especially for women having long difficult labours.
In the 60s and 70s, as researchers and physicians studied the value and safety of water birth for both women and their babies, women became inspired to improvise by making their own birth pools using items like cattle troughs, and paddling pools, so they could experience a water birth in their own home.
Over time these ripples of inspiration reached the shores of New Zealand, and the first modern record of water birth in the Southern Hemisphere happened in Tutukaka (Northland), on the 17th March 1982, where a woman named Estelle, gave birth to her son, Zhan (weighing 3.6kg) into the water.
These early water births in New Zealand were often met with disapproval by the medical system (from 1971 - 1990 midwives weren’t allowed to practice without the supervision of a medical doctor), but with the rise of feminism in the 70s, and increased autonomy for midwives that came with the Nurses Amendment Act in 1990 women gained more control over their bodies and more choices in their maternity care, and the use of water for labour and birth began to increase.
The most recent statistics available show that approximately 27% of women in New Zealand use water immersion as a method of pain relief during labour, and approximately 11% of women remain in the birth pool to birth their baby.
The New Zealand College of Midwives (NZCoM) who provide and promote quality standards for midwives in NZ state in their Consensus Statement: for The Use of Water for Labour and Birth:
“The New Zealand College of Midwives (Inc) supports warm water immersion for women during labour as a method of pain management. There is no evidence that remaining in water for the birth of the baby leads to adverse outcomes for the mother or baby where the labour has been within normal parameters. Women who make an informed choice to give birth in water should be given every opportunity and assistance to do so....”.