Water births are becoming more popular as experts call for an end to difficult births

Hydrotherapy and water births were the focus of a two-day Better Birth Experience conference in Hyderabad, where clinicians and obstetric experts called for an end to the Indian practice of difficult births. The event, which began on Saturday, highlighted how non-pharmaceutical methods such as warm water births, bath births and allowing women to move freely during labor can reduce fear, pain and unnecessary medical procedures.

Experts noted that while the benefits of water birth are widely recognized around the world, the practice remains rare in India. Dr. Evita Fernandez, chairwoman of the Fernandez Foundation, said that nearly 25 million babies are born in the country every year, but hydrotherapy accounts for less than 0.01% of them. She attributed this to a shortage of trained midwives, a huge patient load in public hospitals and a lack of infrastructure needed to maintain clean and safe birthing pools.

Specialists noted that hydrotherapy is far from a new concept. Inderjit Kaur, director of the hospital’s obstetrics department, said water birth rituals can be traced back to regions around the Red Sea in Egypt, while the first documented water birth occurred in France in 1803. The United Kingdom began offering this option regularly in the 1970s and 1980s. Fernandes Hospital introduced it in India in 2017 and has since performed over 800 hydrotherapy treatments and over 430 water births.

Dr. Pallavi Chandra, organizing secretary of the conference, said that childbirth as a natural process has remained unchanged for millions of years, but hospitals have changed the environment for childbirth to suit clinical convenience. Over the past six to seven decades, she said, birth has gradually evolved into a clinical event focused on monitoring, speed and efficiency, often at the expense of woman-centered births.