Can I ask a dumb question?

HopingForOne

When people say "water birth" do they mean that the labour AND birth were in the tub, or can this be used to describe someone who laboured in a bath but delivered on a bed?

Jason'swife

I believe it only refers to babies that are actually born under water.

HopingForOne

Okay.  Because my friends always use it to refer to people who use a tub at ANY point (even if it's like, ten minutes of labour) and it was confusing the heck out of me.

Jason'swife

Yeah, I could be wrong. But I'm pretty sure just being in the tub for 10 minutes doesn't cut it. It's still a great method of natural pain relief, but it's not really a "water birth".

nerdsbride

I always thought that the labor had nothing to do with it and it only referred to the birth.

HopingForOne

I'm assuming you guys are right :P

I'm sticking to my plan of "give me the drugs, dammit", but I did recently find out that our hospital has birthing tubs (or maybe A tub....lol...not sure) so I might look into it more for the labour part...in case the drug thing doesn't work out so well

Jason'swife

Yeah, I'm told it's great for pain relief.

Magic Ball

Not sure on this but I did watch a water birth on the baby story the other day and no way no how would I ever do it. Epi for me please. Last time I checked the hospitals never gave out a mother of the year award for going through pain.