Underwater birth and neonatal respiratory distress

In 1992 the House of Commons Select Health Committee's report on maternity services recommended that all hospitals should provide women with the “option of a birthing pool where this is practicable.”1 A subsequent surveillance study of all NHS maternity units between 1994 and 1996 found that 0.6% of all deliveries in England and Wales occurred in water.2 Rawal and colleagues have suggested that water births have become popular among mothers and midwives because the buoyancy and warmth of the water promotes natural labour while providing a non-invasive safe and effective form of pain management.3 Practitioners and parents should remember, however, that birthing pools pose potential risks for the baby. We report on a newborn baby who developed respiratory distress due to aspiration after an underwater birth. A full term male infant weighing 3150 g was born in the birthing pool of the labour ward of our hospital. His mother was a 34 year old, healthy primigravida who had …