Natural Childbirth, Baby Birth

Natural Childbirth, Baby Birth

     Natural childbirth is a delivery that respects the physiological process of labor and birth, with medical intervention reduced to its strict minimum. 

     Artificial rupture of the water pouch, oxytocin infusion, epidural analgesia, bladder catheterization or continuous monitoring: these various procedures, which are now practiced almost systematically, are avoided in natural childbirth.

     Natural childbirth is only possible if the pregnancy is considered "normal", that is, according to the WHO, "a pregnancy with spontaneous onset, low risk from the beginning and throughout labor and delivery. The child is born spontaneously in the cephalic position of the vertex between the 37th and 42nd week of gestation. After birth, both mother and newborn are well."

Why use it?

     Based on the premise that pregnancy and childbirth are not a disease but a natural process, a "happy event" and, as the saying goes, a "happy event", some parents believe that medical intervention should be limited to the strict minimum. 

     In this respect, WHO recalls "that a normal delivery provided it is low-risk, requires only the careful observation of a midwife or skilled attendant capable of detecting early signs of complications. 

     It requires no intervention, only encouragement, support, and a little tenderness. 98% of births take place in maternity hospitals, where the vast majority are managed according to standard protocols justified for deliveries with complications, while only 1 woman in 5 has a proven need for specialized medical supervision and the intervention of an obstetrician is necessary for only 20 to 25% of births.

     Faced with this "hyper-medicalization of childbirth", some women wish to re-appropriate the birth of their child and offer it a respected birth. 

     This desire is part of the movement of respectful parenthood that emerged about ten years ago. 

     For these mothers, natural childbirth is the only way for them to "act" in their childbirth. They trust their bodies and their ability to handle the natural event of childbirth.


     This desire to re-appropriate childbirth is also supported by certain research, including that of Michel Odent, which tends to establish a correlation between the birth environment and the physical, psychological and emotional health of the newborn baby.

Where to give birth to natural birth?

     The project of natural childbirth begins with the choice of the place of delivery, the most suitable places for this type of delivery being: the physiological poles or "nature rooms" of certain maternity hospitals, places representing "an alternative between medicalized delivery in hospital and home delivery.

Techniques and methods

     In the context of natural childbirth, certain practices should be favored in order to promote the physiological process of childbirth and help the mother-to-be to manage pain:

     Mobility and choice of posture during labor and expulsion: more and more studies have shown that mobility and postural freedom are favorable to the mechanics of childbirth. 

     Certain positions would also have an analgesic effect, allowing mothers to better manage pain. 

     Various objects can be used to adopt these positions: electric delivery bed, balloon, cakes, birth bed, suspension lianas mounted on rails or on a device consisting of a perforated chair (known as combi-track childbirth), the use of water, for its analgesic virtues in particular, in a dilatation bathtub.


     Natural therapeutic means such as homeopathy, acupuncture, hypnosis; moral support, with the presence of a midwife, or even a doula, throughout the duration of labor.