When you arrive at AquaNatal Birth Spa in labor...

You will occupy the private birth suite of your choice. The perfect alternative to home or hospital settings, you will have safety, privacy, and the option to labor as you choose. This is your birth. A completely personal event, you may choose to labor with the support of very few people and the monitoring of your midwife. Or you may see your birth as a family experience and any family, friends, or support professionals you want to be with you are welcomed. We easily incorporate fathers, partners, and children into the process. In addition to the private suite, there are kitchenette facilities and a family room for your guests.

We take birth plans very seriously, unobtrusively monitoring labor with a minimum of vaginal examinations.

You will be encouraged and supported in moving and laboring in whatever way is most comfortable for you and that allows you the greatest level of relaxation and mastery of coping with your labor. You may walk, sit, lie in bed, and relax in our 110-gallon birthing tub. You may also choose to give birth there.

Water birth...

Warm water often helps muscles relax. Sometimes referred to the "midwife's epidural", the combination of buoyancy and relaxation seems to lower stress and allow the laboring woman's body to function very efficiently. Babies seem to like it too. The transition from water to water eases the entry for many babies and has a soothing effect on the whole family. Puget Sound Birth Center midwives are very comfortable with and skilled in water birth and will offer it as an option for birth when appropriate.

Partner participation...

We take partners' role as parents very seriously and welcome and encourage their full participation. When appropriate, fathers or partners may "catch" their baby (after the midwife has guided the delivery of the head and shoulders).

"Fathers who accepted the opportunity to 'catch' their own babies (in uncomplicated births with supervision) were twice as involved with their baby three months after the births as the dads who had not had this experience". Dr. John Gottman, The Relationship Research Institute, on a study conducted by obstetricians Myron Levine and Robert Black.

At the moment of your birth and the precious moments following it, our focus is to allow you the fullness of this time together uninterrupted with as little interference as possible. Mother and baby are never separated and both are monitored and tended to together.