Birth Into Being: The Russian Waterbirth Experience

Barbara Harper has been researching waterbirth for many years, and her quest has taken her all over the world. In Russia, it seems, she discovered the essence of waterbirthing. This video, the product of collaboration between a group of waterbirth advocates in Moscow and Harper's organization, is an accumulation of intense effort made over a ten year period.

Midwife Tatyana Sargunas and her filmmaker husband Alexei recorded five births, all of them natural and all under water. Footage includes women birthing in the Black Sea where the water is tepid and the women are very comfortable. As one mom commented, "The birth renewed my strength and empowered me." It is an extraordinary affirmation to watch the birthing women's confidence and tranquility and to remark first hand just how focused and relaxed the women are.

Water symbolizes both spirit and healing. As such, it has been used to facilitate labor for decades, and its innate ability to help relax, warm and nurture the birthing woman through birth is well known among those who use it or who witness it.

This video shows us what it means to start babies in a life of connection to spirit that is both gentle and powerful. I guarantee the footage will take your breath away. The concept is so good and pure it will change you. While these techniques are not for everyone, they have the potential to open the door to natural birth for all families and allow them to consider the birth experience in terms of "love, light and consciousness." I recommend this video to all parents and birth practitioners as a path to birth change, better birth and good beginnings for our children.

Birth Into Being: The Russian Waterbirth Experience, video produced by Barbara Harper, 1999. (Global Maternal Child Health Association, Wilsonville, OR; 28 min. VHS) Code V99BIB:$39.95

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