Cornelia Enning has been a licensed midwife in Germany since 1972 and has attended homebirths and waterbirths since 1975. She is the founder of the German parents association "Wasserbabies" and editor of the quarterly Wasserbaby-Post. Cornelia is the author of Placenta: The Gift of Life (Motherbaby Press), as well as several books on waterbirth. She directs the German Federation of Aquapaedagogik, instructs parents in water training for newborns, and has taught waterbirth midwifery to more than 4000 midwives and obstetricians. Cornelia has two adult children and one granddaughter.
Melissa Cate—melissacatephotography.com
German midwife Cornelia Enning shares why for more than 30 years she has assisted breech births exclusively in water.
Photos provided by author
To prepare for an autonomous waterbirth, a woman should know the specific quality of contractions in each stage of birth. Read more…. How to Support the Autonomy of Motherbaby in Second Stage of Waterbirth
That first moment of eye contact between mother and baby is critical during a waterbirth. So what happens when the mother you’re assisting as a midwife is birthing in water and is blind? Author Cornelia Enning recounts one beautiful experience.
Photo by Linus Nylund
Water has flooded the new century, nosing her way forward with overwhelming power, washing away outmoded methods. It seems that destiny, rather than coincidence, led me to waterbirth. When I was a child, my home in Berlin faced the first university hospital (Benjamin-Franklin-Uni) offering “water cures,” an invention by Professor Schweninger of Berlin, who called himself a “naturopath.” His “Schweninger cures” were offered in Berlin as well as in Baden-Baden.
Read more…. Waterbirth: Contemporary Application for Historic Concepts
