A two-day conference on ‘Better Birthing Experience’ organised in Hyderabad.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Hydrotherapy and water birthing emerged as the central themes of a two-day conference on ‘Better Birthing Experience’ held in Hyderabad, where clinicians and midwifery experts called for a shift away from India’s intervention heavy childbirth practices. The event, which began on Saturday, highlighted that non-pharmaceutical techniques such as labouring in warm water, birthing in tubs and allowing women to move freely during labour can reduce fear, pain and unnecessary medical procedures.
Experts noted that although the benefits of water birthing are widely acknowledged globally, the practice remains rare in India. Dr Evita Fernandez, Chairperson of the Fernandez Foundation, said that the country witnesses nearly 25 million births every year, yet hydrotherapy accounts for less than 0.01% of them. She attributed this to the shortage of trained midwives, the overwhelming patient load in public hospitals and the lack of infrastructure required to maintain clean and safe birthing pools.
The experts pointed out that hydrotherapy is far from a new concept. Inderjeet Kaur, Director of Midwifery at the hospital, said that rituals involving childbirth in water have been traced to regions around the Red Sea in Egypt, while the first documented water birth took place in France in 1803. The United Kingdom began routinely offering the option in the 1970s and 1980s. Fernandez Hospital introduced it in India in 2017 and has since facilitated more than 800 hydrotherapies and over 430 water births.
Dr. Pallavi Chandra, organising secretary of the conference, said that childbirth as a natural process has remained the same for millions of years, but hospitals have reshaped birthing environments to suit clinical convenience. Over the last six to seven decades, she said, birth has gradually been transformed into a clinical event focused on monitoring, speed and efficiency, often at the cost of a woman centred birthing experience.
Published – November 08, 2025 08:10 pm IST
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