More women decide on all-natural water births
HOUSTON (KTRK) -- Pregnant Houston mother Nicole Wylie is getting ready to meet her little girl. This will be her third daughter, but this time she is doing things differently.
She is at home and giving birth without any drugs and submerged in water.
Wylie's husband, her midwife, her mother, and her two young daughters are by her side watching it all take place.
How do you explain it to young children?
"You just say, 'I'm having a baby and it's going to come out of me and I might make noises that are loud. If it scares you, you can go in the other room,'" she said.
Wylie experienced a painful epidural headache while delivering her second child. The shot pricked Wylie spinal column and it leaked fluid. She says this water birth helped her manage the pain.
"There's just got to be a better way that doesn't involve hospitals, epidurals and people coming into my hospital room at all hours of the day," Wylie said.
ABC-13 found an increasing number of women who are choosing to go all-natural during childbirth. Maria Sotolongo plans to document the water births of 10 Houston women, including Wylie's. The filmmaker is also planning her first water birth.
"I think sometimes we research more buying a house or buying a car than giving birth which I believe is the most powerful things we can do in our lives as women," Sotolongo said.
She delivered her second son at home with her husband.
"I think the pain is greater in our minds than the actual birth," Sotolongo said.
And the male perspective?
"It was very tough, but we did it," husband Phil Sotolongo said.
Many critics are concerned about the risk of not being at a hospital during an emergency. But Wylie's midwife used to work as a hospital delivery nurse.
"We let our moms know if at any point we are unhappy with your baby and how we feel like that you're safe and things aren't going well, we will get you out of that. We will not deliver in the water if things don't look or sound right," midwife Natalie Wommack said.
Finally, after hours of working through the pain and keeping calm, baby Celia arrived.
