Warm water immersion during labour provides women with analgesia and comfort. Many women in the UK use intrapartum water immersion analgesia, some of whom also give birth to their baby in water. The POOL cohort study was the largest global study of the safety of waterbirth describing outcomes for over 60,000 women using intrapartum water immersion analgesia.

Julia Sanders is Professor of Clinical Midwifery at Cardiff University. She has been a midwife for many years, completed her MPH and PhD with support of a MRC Fellowship and works closely with the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, Oxford University.