The POOL study (more information is here if you haven’t been following along with this series) is simply the latest in a long series of studies examining aspects of safety relating to the use, or not, of water immersion at birth. Where does the POOL study evidence fit with what was already known from earlier research? Does it provide something new and controversial, or does it reinforce where the evidence […]
This week I’m returning to an exploration of the literature about water birth and the perineum. The recently published paper by Sanders and colleagues (2024, in press) has already generated two letters to the editor. I want to start by looking at their criticisms and considering their validity, before making some conclusions about what I think the POOL study can teach us. Letter number 1 The first of the letters […]
As I was pondering on the question of why water birth seems to get obstetricians in a bit of a tizzy – I realised my own experience of learning to support women at water births provides some clues. This week’s post is a reflection on what I have learned as an obstetrician who has been present at over 100 water births. The early days While I had been interested in […]
The past decade has seen quite a lot written about whether giving birth in water is good or bad for women’s perineums. The UK seems to have been the hotspot for these discussions. In today’s blog post, I’m going summarise a new piece of research that has kicked off another round of letters to the editor. How was the research done? This new, just published trial is the POOL cohort […]
Birth Small Talk 