Why We Had A Water Birth At The City Swimming Pool

November 5, 2021 by , featured in Spiritual Wellness
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There’s no experience in this life as sacred and beautiful as the birth of a child. Rather than embrace this natural and only occasionally lethal process, however, many babies are born in sterile, corporate hospitals staffed by checked-out doctors and mean nurses who treat childbirth like an arduous routine. For most parents in this “civilized” country, childbirth is but a taxing medical procedure that’s traumatizing for all involved.

It just doesn’t make sense to bring a new person into the world among beeping machines, fluorescent lighting, and nurses who could slip on a puddle of amniotic fluid and drop your two-minute-old baby into a pile of used syringes. I believe this is why old-fashioned and progressive birthing has taken off in recent years. Labor can be a transcendent and wonderful experience if you do it in a cabin in the woods with a trusted midwife or, if you’re like my wife and I, a luxurious public pool.

It’s Best For Baby

water birth

The experts (specifically, my Reiki healer and the lady who drops off my farm box every two weeks) all agree that a water birth is most gentle form of birth. Moving from the wet world of a womb into outside water provides the least traumatic transition for that gentle little creature. It’s also relaxing for the mother, allowing her to focus on being in the moment conserve her energy for screaming at anyone who swims within 10 feet of her to back off and drop the umbilical cord because it is not a pool noodle.

Chlorine For The Win

water birth

Hospitals are filthy, and the solution is worse than the problem! Do you really want your little angel to be born in a place full of sick people, dying people, and dead people, where the “clean-up” involves splashing caustic bleach or other chemicals on the floor? I’ll take a swimming pool, thank you very much. That thing is full of only natural chlorine, which totally kills any and all germs.

No Fuss, No Muss!

It was during our first birth—which, I regret to say, took place in a dastardly hospital—that we learned that when a woman gives birth, she will definitely evacuate her bowels and bladder at some point. If you don’t like pooping yourself in front of a nurse, water birth could be for you. When most of you is underwater, nobody will see (or hear) the pee and poop coming out of you. Also, instead of just sitting there on the bed, it just floats away for someone else, likely a minimum-wage teenager, to deal with.

You’re Welcome, Community

water birth

I pride myself on being a selfless person, so I see having our water birth at the city pool as my gift to my community. All 150–200 people who just so happened to come out for a dip that Tuesday morning during open swim last July got to experience firsthand the wonders, amazement, and unfiltered reality of childbirth. I feel like I really broke down their puritanical attitudes that day when they saw me wade into the deep end and help my wife push a baby out a baby, a significant amount of bodily waste, and all kinds of other gross things. They saw what a real woman looks like: fully nude and with a baby emerging from her undercarriage. 

Images: Pixabay, Pixabay, Pixabay, Pixabay


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