Waterbirth International

05/28/2026

👶💦We are so excited to officially introduce the very first annual WORLD WATER BIRTH WEEK June 22–26!💦👶

Created as a global celebration that honors gentle, evidence-based waterbirth and the providers and families helping transform birth around the world.

For one powerful week, midwives, doulas, nurses, physicians, educators, and families across the globe will come together to celebrate the beauty, safety, and physiology of waterbirth.

Every day, families experience calmer, gentler births through the support of warm water and respectful care. Yet many people still have never seen what physiologic waterbirth can truly look like or understand the research supporting it.

Throughout the Week We’ll Share:
💧 Real waterbirth stories
💧 Evidence-based research
💧 Historic archival footage
💧 Provider spotlights from around the world
💧 Beautiful examples of gentle birth in action

World Waterbirth Day — June 25
As part of the celebration, June 25 has also been designated as World Waterbirth Day by Waterbirth Canada in honor of Barbara Harper’s lifelong contributions to waterbirth education and advocacy.
💙 Follow and tag for more information and campaign highlights.

From hospitals to homebirth settings, providers trained through Waterbirth International are helping families experience safer, more respectful, physiologic birth in communities worldwide.

World Water Birth Week is more than a celebration.
It is a reminder that birth can be calm. Birth can be gentle. Birth can be deeply human.

And we want YOU to be part of it.

Have a waterbirth story or photos to share?
Your experience could help educate providers and inspire families around the world.

💧🌍 Learn more at waterbirth.org/world-water-birth-week 🌍💧

05/20/2026

👶💦Did you know that one of the most extraordinary moments in waterbirth is when a mother instinctively welcomes her own baby into the world?💦👶

In this beautiful video, we witness a calm, gentle, and deeply physiologic birth as a mother softly supports her baby’s emerging head with her own hands before lifting the baby peacefully to her chest moments later.

When labor is protected, supported, and undisturbed, many women enter a deeply relaxed and focused state during birth. Warm water helps soften tension, reduce stress hormones, and create an environment where the body can work in rhythm with labor rather than against it.

This mother’s quiet confidence and gentle touch reflect something powerful: women often instinctively know how to move, breathe, and respond during birth when they feel safe and supported.

Waterbirth allows babies to move gradually from the warmth of the womb into the warmth of the water and immediately into their mother’s arms. This truly supports the calm newborn transition and uninterrupted bonding.

This is the essence of what Barbara Harper and Waterbirth International teaches: protecting physiology, honoring intuition, and supporting birth with evidence-based, compassionate care.

If you are a doula, midwife, nurse, or physician wanting to support births like this, then our Online Provider Certification Course was created for you.

💧🌍 Learn more how to help empower mothers to have a beautiful birth like this one at waterbirth.org 🌍💧

05/17/2026

💦Did you know that water immersion during labor is supported by decades of research showing improved comfort, reduced interventions, and greater maternal satisfaction?💦

Warm water does far more than help women relax, it actively supports the physiology of labor and birth.

💧 Reduced Pain & Lower Epidural Use
Multiple studies, including the Cochrane Review on immersion in water during labor and birth, found that women laboring in water reported lower pain levels and were less likely to request epidural analgesia (Cluett & Burns, 2009).

💧 Lower Stress Hormones
Warm water promotes relaxation and decreases catecholamine release, allowing oxytocin, the hormone responsible for effective contractions, to work more efficiently (Odent, 2014). This often leads to calmer, more productive labor patterns.

💧 Freedom of Movement & Improved Positioning
Buoyancy reduces pressure on the joints and pelvis, making it easier for laboring women to instinctively move, squat, kneel, rotate, and find positions that support fetal descent and comfort.

💧 Shorter Labors & Greater Satisfaction
Research has linked water immersion with shorter labors, reduced intervention rates, and higher maternal satisfaction scores (Burns et al., 2012; Ulfsdottir et al., 2018).

💧 Emotional Safety
Qualitative studies consistently show that women describe laboring in water as calming, empowering, and deeply supportive of emotional well-being (BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth, 2025).

Water immersion is not simply a comfort measure. It is a physiologic tool that supports the body’s innate ability to labor and birth.

Interested in offering laboring in water at your practice?
Learn from Barbara Harper’s 40+ years of global experience through our evidence-based Online Provider Certification Course.

💧🌍 Learn more at waterbirth.org 🌍💧

05/12/2026

👶💦Did you know that a new 10-year study found water immersion during labor was associated with better maternal and newborn outcomes than epidural analgesia among low-risk women?💦👶

A 2024 retrospective cohort study published in Healthcare compared outcomes of more than 1,100 low-risk births in Spain between women who used water immersion and those who received epidural analgesia during labor.

The findings continue to support what Waterbirth International has taught for decades: when physiology is protected, birth often unfolds more gently and effectively.

💧 Higher Rates of Spontaneous Birth
Women using water immersion were significantly more likely to have a spontaneous vaginal birth and far less likely to experience cesarean birth.

💧 Improved Perineal Outcomes
The study found higher rates of intact perineums and lower rates of episiotomy among women laboring in water—supporting the role of relaxation, mobility, and reduced tension during physiologic birth.

💧 Better Newborn Outcomes
Babies in the water immersion group showed:
- Better 5-minute Apgar scores
- Better umbilical cord arterial pH
- Lower NICU admission rates

💧 Supporting Calm, Physiologic Labor
Researchers concluded that women choosing water immersion “were no more likely to experience adverse outcomes” and often experienced better results than those using epidural analgesia.

This growing body of evidence reinforces what experienced midwives, doulas, nurses, and waterbirth providers witness every day around the world: warm water supports relaxation, mobility, physiologic labor, and gentler transitions for both mother and baby.

These are exactly the kinds of evidence-based studies explored throughout the Waterbirth International Provider Certification Course. Barbara Harper helps birth professionals understand not only how waterbirth works, but why.

Read the full article here:
https://waterbirth.org/new-study

05/10/2026

👶💐Happy Mother’s Day to the mothers, grandmothers, birth mothers, adoptive mothers, grieving mothers, hopeful mothers, and every woman who has carried, nurtured, loved, and guided life in her own way.💐👶

Everyday our birth care providers have the extraordinary privilege of witnessing mothers in some of the most powerful and vulnerable moments of their lives. They are breathing, surrendering, trusting, protecting, and welcoming new life into the world.

And birth reminds us that mothers carry an incredible wisdom within them. Whether its in water, at home, in a hospital, quietly, loudly, peacefully, or unexpectedly. There is profound strength in every aspect.

From the very first moments after birth, we witness something sacred:
a mother’s voice calming her baby,
hands reaching instinctively,
skin-to-skin contact,
tears, relief, love, and transformation.

These moments shape families forever.

Today we honor not only the act of giving birth, but the lifelong work of mothering. All the unseen labors, the fierce protection, the tenderness, the resilience, and the endless giving of oneself for another.

We believe every mother deserves respectful, compassionate, evidence-based care and the opportunity to birth in an environment where she feels safe, heard, and supported.

Thank you to all the mothers whose stories we have heard. Your strength and beauty continues to inspire birth professionals and families around the world.

💧🌍 To all mothers who have had a water birth,
we would love to hear your story at waterbirth.org/story 🌍💧

🌸Happy Mother's Day!🌸

05/09/2026

👶💦Did you know that expanding access to midwifery care could dramatically improve maternal and newborn outcomes in the United States?💦👶

At Waterbirth International, we deeply believe in supporting midwives and physiologic, evidence-based birth care around the world. Midwives play an essential role in protecting normal birth, honoring families, and creating calmer, safer birth experiences.

To every midwife advocating for respectful care and better outcomes: thank you for the work you do every day.

Learn more about our global midwifery education mission at waterbirth.org

A 2023 "Expert Review” article was published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology. The authors present the case:

"...fully integrating the midwifery model of care in philosophically aligned healthcare teams and institutions is a key strategy for addressing healthcare disparities and the maternity care crisis in the United States. Expanding the midwifery model of care would align the United States with peer nations that consistently demonstrate maternal and neonatal outcomes that are significantly better than those found in the United States."

The authors cite the approach to midwifery that is standard in other countries, especially in wealthy European nations, where women have as much as seven times the access to midwives that they do in the United States. They report that midwifery care has improved outcomes by 56 different measures — including lower morbidity and mortality among mothers and newborns, fewer preterm births and low birthweight infants, and reduced interventions in labor.

Source: Combellick, JL, Telfer, ML, et al. Midwifery care during labor and birth in the United States. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Source: Forman, R. Midwifery Review: Adding Care by Midwives Improves Birth Outcomes. Yale School of Medicine.

05/05/2026

👶💜Happy International Doula Month to the incredible doulas supporting families around the world!💜👶

This year’s theme, “Doulas: Nurturing the World, One Family at a Time,” beautifully reflects what we witness every day at Waterbirth International: when doulas support a mother, the impact goes far beyond the birth room.

Doulas provide calm presence, emotional reassurance, evidence-based education, and continuous support during one of life’s most vulnerable and transformative moments. Their work helps families feel informed, seen, respected, and empowered.

Many doulas trained through the Waterbirth International Provider Course are helping families better understand physiologic birth, water immersion, informed consent, comfort measures, newborn transition, and respectful maternity care. Their guidance helps parents make decisions rooted in knowledge and not fear.

We are honored to educate doulas from around the world who are committed to gentle, evidence-based birth practices. Through Barbara Harper’s 40+ years of global experience, doulas gain deeper understanding of labor physiology, maternal autonomy, waterbirth safety, and the sacred transition from womb to world.

From birth centers to hospitals to homebirth settings, doulas continue to change birth culture one family at a time, bringing compassion, advocacy, and trust back into the birth experience.

To every doula who has trained with us, supported a laboring mother through the night, held a hand, whispered reassurance, protected a peaceful environment, or helped a family feel safe and strong:
✨ We celebrate you.
✨ We honor your work.
✨ The world needs more birth professionals like you.

💧🌍 Explore the Waterbirth International Global Provider Directory and discover doulas around the world who have trained with us at waterbirth.org 🌍💧

05/01/2026

🌍💦 Check your inbox! Did you get the Spring edition of WBI Global Impacts & Updates? 🌍💦

So much has been happening at Waterbirth International and if you haven’t seen our latest update, you may be missing some of the most exciting momentum we have had this year.

From hospital trainings in Cambridge to a powerful return to Mexico, and now an upcoming mission to Nigeria sparked by one inspired provider, Barbara Harper's work continues to grow in ways that are truly meaningful for birth professionals and families around the world.

Inside our latest newsletter:
💧 Real global impact and provider trainings
💧 New voices and conversations through recent podcasts
💧 A growing international community of certified providers
💧 Big announcement happening in June!
💧 Opportunities to get involved and share your story

Every step forward helps expand access to safe, respectful, evidence-based birth.

✨ Read the latest issue:✨
https://mailchi.mp/waterbirth/april-2026-news

🌍 Not on our mailing list yet?
Stay connected and receive future updates:
waterbirth.org/sign-up

04/23/2026

👶🏾💦This August, Waterbirth International is answering a call to serve in Nigeria and we need your help!💦👶🏾

Barbara Harper will travel to Nigeria this August to train as many midwives, nurses, physicians, doulas, and birth care providers as possible in safe, respectful, evidence-based waterbirth and physiologic birth practices. This opportunity was made possible through the vision of Midwife Adebanke Victoria, a Waterbirth International Certified Provider dedicated to improving birth care in her community.

One Provider Sparked a Greater Mission
After completing our Provider Certification program, Midwife Adebanke saw how transformative this education could be for mothers, babies, and providers in Nigeria. Her leadership helped bring this training mission to life.

Nigerian families deserve compassionate, evidence-based maternity care and access to birth options that honor dignity, comfort, and physiology. Providers are eager for education that improves outcomes and expands respectful choices.

For more than 40 years, Barbara has traveled the world teaching gentle birth practices, mentoring providers, and helping hospitals and communities integrate waterbirth safely into care.

This fundraiser will help cover travel, training materials, provider scholarships, and the ability to reach more clinicians while Barbara is in Nigeria.

Every donation helps place life-changing knowledge into the hands of those caring for mothers and babies.

Train one provider, and you impact hundreds of births.
Train a community, and you help change generations.

✨ Please consider donating and sharing with others who believe every mother deserves respectful, evidence-based care.

💧🌍 Support the fundraiser here:
https://gofund.me/1306cc06d
🌍💧

04/21/2026

🌍💦Did you know that Waterbirth International Certified Providers are supporting families all across the world?💦🌍

From Canada, Australia, Argentina, Tanzania, the Philippines, Colombia, Egypt, India, Israel, Peru, Nigeria, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the United States, UAE and many more, our global network continues to grow with passionate professionals committed to gentle, respectful, evidence-based birth care.

When you train with Barbara Harper and Waterbirth International, you become part of an international movement dedicated to protecting physiology, honoring families, and expanding safe waterbirth options in communities everywhere.

Our Global Provider Network helps families locate trained professionals who understand waterbirth safety, physiologic birth, and compassionate maternity care. It also helps providers connect with like-minded colleagues across countries and cultures.

You worked hard for your education. You invested in your skills. You carry valuable knowledge into every birth space. Being listed in the network lets families know you are a provider committed to continuing education and respectful, evidence-based care.

Whether you are a midwife, doula, nurse, physician or childbirth educator, your presence strengthens this global map of providers changing birth one family at a time.

If you have ever trained or been certified with Barbara, don’t forget to join the network and proudly let the world know you are part of this mission.

Families are searching for providers like you.
The world needs to see our movement growing.

🌍 Join our Global Provider Network at waterbirth.org/network 🌍