The first woman in China to give birth by the deep-water immersion method is preparing to have her second child born under water.

Ma Nan, 29, will have her family join her in the pool.

"With her family members joining her in the birthing pool, Ma will feel more relaxed and confident," said Dr. Rong Jian, director of the Administrative Office of the Shanghai Changning District Maternity and Child Health Hospital. Ma delivered her first child in a birthing pool in 2003.

According to a medical journal, community midwives have for decades encouraged women to have a warm bath during labor, but it was only when Dr. Michael Odent installed an inflatable pool in his hospital in Pithiviers, France in 1977, that water birth became more widely known to the public.

Women choose the deep-water immersion mainly because of the remarkable pain relieving benefits and the freedom of movement it allows. They tend to enter the pool when labor is well under way since water can slow early labor and mothers can stay there until after the baby is born.

Water in the pool was maintained at 36 or 37 degrees Celsius, said Rong, and the cost for this special service was around 700 yuan (US$84) higher than bed births but much less than Caesarean section.

"A water birth also helps reduce the chance of infection and can shorten the labor time by two hours," said Rong.

"It may also leave a painful memory for the infant," said Barbara Harper, founder of Waterbirth International, during the Shanghai International Labor Technique Training seminar.

In the past three years, 320 women have delivered their babies in the hospital's labor pool. Not a single case of infection was reported.
 
Editor: Catherine