What I Learned From the First Hospital Birthing Pool
by Michel Odent
© 2000 Midwifery Today, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
The first hospital birthing pool happened in the 1970s in a French state
hospital. At that time France had some similarities with California. Following
the student revolution of May 1968, the watchword was, "It is forbidden
to forbid." It was a time for audacity and creativity. In such a
context, we one day dared to transform a conventional delivery room into
a homelike birthing room. In the same context, we bought a piano and
invited the pregnant women to meet in the maternity unit on Tuesday evening
and sing together. We also took into account that, when in labor, many
women seemed to be attracted by water. Some wanted to have a shower, others
a bath. That is why I eventually bought a blue inflatable garden paddling
pool. This was the beginning of the history of birthing pools in hospitals.
As soon as the birthing pool was installed new strategies became possible.
When a woman in hard labor was expressing an imperative demand for painkillers,
we had something else to offer other than a shot of Demerol (the most
popular painkiller of the 1970s). We could introduce the mother-to-be
into the aquatic birthing room so that she could watch the beautiful
blue water and hear the noise of the water filling the pool. The room
had been painted blue, with dolphins on the walls. From that time on the
question was not, "When will you give me a painkiller?" It
was more often than not, "How long does it take to fill the pool?"
The first lesson was about the importance of the time when the woman in
labor is anticipating the bath: The dilation of the cervix can already
progress dramatically before water immersion…if the aquatic environment
is associated with privacy. It is as if some brakes are suddenly released.
We were the witnesses of one of the many aspects of the magic effects
of water on human beings, a magic power that cannot be easily explained
with the language of physiologists.
At the time of the paddling pool (that is, before we installed a pool
in hard material), women were not influenced by the media or by what they
read in books about childbirth. Their behavior was unpremeditated. This
phase of the history of childbirth was ideal to learn about the genuine
effects of a watery environment. One of the most typical scenarios (with
many possible variations) was the case of a woman entering the pool in
hard labor at around 5 centimetres, spending an hour or two in the water
and then feeling the need to get out of the pool at a stage when the contractions
were less and less effective; going back to dry land was often a way
to induce a short series of irresistible and powerful contractions so
that the baby was born within some minutes. From the time when such a
scenario became common, the pharmacy bill of the maternity unit started
to drop dramatically. In other words, we learned that the birthing pool
can replace drugs. This was the second lesson.
One day a mother-to-be had not been in the water for long when suddenly she
had two irresistible contractions, and the baby was born before she could
feel the need to get out of the pool. While giving birth, this woman was
really "on another planet." It was obvious that in that particular
state of consciousness associated with hard labor she miraculously knew
that her baby could be born safely under water. There was no panic. It
is as if a deep-rooted knowledge could express itself as soon as the intellect
was at rest. Occasionally, similar stories happened again. We had learned
the third lesson: A birth under water is a possibility. A newborn human
baby has powerful diving reflexes and is perfectly adapted to immersion.
From that time many journalists, reporters and photographers were fascinated
by the particular case of babies born in water. They were indifferent
to what I personally considered important in the context of the 1970s: the
great number of babies who could find the breast in the birthing room.
We were just discovering that when the first contact between mother and
baby is not disturbed at all, the human baby is as if programmed to find
the nipple during the hour following birth. Young readers of Midwifery
Today must realize that before 1980, very few people had heard of "the
early expression of the rooting reflex." After a short period of
surprise and even frustration, I concluded that good journalists are experts
in human nature. They know how to attract the attention of their readers
or their viewers. They have this intuitive knowledge that there is a special
relationship between human beings and water.
I learned a lot about the media….
Michel Odent, MD, founded the Primal Health Research Centre in London
and developed the maternity unit in Pithiviers, France, where birthing pools are used.
He is the author of 10 books published in 19 languages. Two of them—Birth
Reborn and The
Nature of Birth and Breastfeeding—were published originally in the
United States. His latest book is The Scientification
of Love (available for $19 through Midwifery Today).
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