Artcle: Water Birth by chiqui

Water Birth in the Philippines

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More and more women are becoming interested in water birth. I have at least one couple in every other birth class interested in doing a water birth. 

The first time a student of mine seriously asked me to refer to her a hospital doing it, there was none available. I only knew of a clinic called Gentle Hands being ran by a Canadian missionary midwife together with other Filipino midwives. 

I was in my students water birth and was very amazed at the turn out of the event. She was calmer and felt less pain than if she was on dry land. She stayed in the water the whole time. I was surprised to find out they used gallons and gallons of distilled water. The water temperature was observed closely and they continued to boil water to maintain 95 to 100 degrees fahrenheit.

What I was not ready to see and expect was the after birth or the birth of her placenta after which the whole pool became red. My student tore slightly so after bonding a while with her baby in the pool, she had to get up to go in bed to be repaired. During that time, the sop's for the baby followed, suctioning, eye prophylaxis, vitamin k injection, weighing, getting her length, checking her reflexes etc...

I found this in the Smart Parenting blog and thought I'd share it for added information. Please read below...

Delivering a Water Baby: Water Birth Pros and Cons

I remember Maricel Laxa, my friend and Bradley student, telling me the story of her water birth. She was telling me, now we're even (with our number of kids-5). All she told me were the highlights. Ella, her eldest daughter was there at her birth. She was even the one who cut the umbilical cord. Anthony however had a seminar and he said he never made it to the birth.

I learned from a doctor that she had some complications right after her birth. It was exactly the same complications I had in my last birth. My blood pressure dropped and I lost a lot of blood. I needed to have transfusion. It was partly because of our age, we were both in our 40's and had a long labor and were tired.

 Maricel Laxa-Pangilinan and I

More on water birth from "The Independent" news on:
Water birth "provides the safest form of pain relief."
by Jeremy Laurence, health editor, Sept. 6, 2007