What could be more important?
The birth of your baby is one of the most important moments in your entire life. It will have lon-lasting consequences that affect your most intimate family
relationships for years to come. Water birth is a gift that
lasts a lifetime! It can optimize your birth experience, help you to take control of your birth, and assist in the creation of your own personal miracle of love and empowerment. Safe, gentle, joyous water birth is
available to you now, visit: Charleston Midwife - Home Birth, Water Tub Birth - Charleston South Carolina.
For nearly ten months your baby develops inside your body, nestled in the warm amniotic fluid. If all is well and normal, your baby floats in its dark, secure, cozy nest supported and protected, with all its needs met immediately. Food and oxygen are continually supplied and wastes removed via the placenta and umbilical cord. Everything is in perfect balance and the feeling is one of security and abundance.
Imagine then, a gentle introduction to the world by being born in water. Warm fluid is the element most familiar and comfortable to your infant, so he or she does not experience fear or pain when coming in contact with it. The room is semi-dark, to avoid a shock to the baby's eyes, and quiet, except for some soothing music. You are in the warm tub feeling relieved, your weight supported by the water. The comfort of the bath relaxes your tension and eases your labor pains, while providing the freedom to move into whatever position is most comfortable. Father may also be in the tub, holding or massaging mother.
After your baby has descended through the birth canal into the warm water, you can even choose to deliver your baby yourself, as the midwife waits nearby in case she is needed. With a water birth, your baby is not taken away from you at birth, which can result in the infant experiencing fear, confusion, feelings of abandonment and even terror. Instead, your baby stays with you and the father and is held and cuddled by both of you, so that he or she will feel secure and nurtured, and the important bonding process can take place.
Because warm water is so soothing, it comforts the woman and helps her cooperate with her own body, so that she can open up more easily and have a natural and much less painful birth. When a woman experiences intense pain or fear during labor or delivery, her body involuntarily tightens up and pulls inward - an automatic, self-protective response. Yet, birth requires the exact opposite - an expansion and release. Since these two conditions are mutually exclusive, the fearful mother's body may be unable to progress to full dilation and her labor may go on for many, many hours as her body tries in vain to both close up in fear and open to release the baby simultaneously.
In this situation the benefit of warm water may be most valuable, because the comfort it provides helps the mother to relax very deeply and assists her body in stretching slowly and gently to accommodate the baby's emergence, usually with no or very minimal tearing.
It is because of this deep relaxation that water labor and/or waterbirth often functions as an effective and important cesarean prevention method.
Charleston Midwife - Home Birth, Water Tub Birth - Charleston South Carolina
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