“This boy was born differently from the majority of Russian babies. The first thing he ever saw was the sea and the creatures that live in it, then the surrounding rocks, floodlit by a full moon. When he breathed the Earth’s air for the very first time it was filled with the smell of seaweed and junipers from nearby forests, without any mixture of medicines or supposedly sterile hospital rooms, and all the other things which remind us of support, convention, illness, feebleness and death. Immediately after taking his first breath of air he was put to his mother’s breast… That was how my son Danilka was born in the sea.”

     The words at the top right of this page are from the story of one of the pioneer Russian mums who tried for herself the much-debated method of water birthing, in this case in the warm summer waters of the Black Sea, located in South West Russia.

     In the early 1960s the Russian experimenter Igor Charkovsky raised the ideas of women undergoing labour in water, of young babies spending time in a watery environment, and of the gradual improvement of seriously ill and weak young children with the aid of swimming and diving in and under the water.
     It seems that this all started with the birth of Igor’s daughter Veta in 1962. She was born prematurely, weighing just 1.2 kg (3.3lb). At that time she had only a very slim chance of survival, as the medical world did not have the equipment we have nowadays for saving such a young life. Igor put her small body into a bath of water, to lighten her and reduce the effects of the Earth’s gravity; the released energy, which was not needed to struggle against gravity, could instead be used for building the tissues she needed to survive.
     The water environment also seemed to make sense in that, had Veta not been born prematurely, she would still have been surrounded by liquid in her mother’s womb. Igor soon built a large indoor pool which became Veta’s ‘home’ for some months. By her due date, Veta had not died (as was the medical prognosis at her birth) and had instead outstripped normal newborn children in her development. By the time she was 11 years old, Veta was a swimming champion in Russia.
     The idea of placing labouring women in water occurred to Igor in 1963 when he was looking for ways to relieve a baby’s brain from the initial shock of gravity at birth. He considered this to be the main reason why people only use their brain to only 3-5% of its capacity. Igor suggested that the concussion human beings experience as we emerge from the weightless environment of a mothers womb is far more devastating than we realise. By the time we grow up and the function of understanding is available to us, we have no reference point with which compare our brain power to what it could have been if we had not been, literally, smacked on the head at the time of birth by the pressure of earthly gravity.
     Charkovsky created a harmonious system of babies’ water development: prenatal aquatic training (water birthing), swimming and diving for young babies (baby-yoga), and hardening and healing with cold water using equipment specifically designed by Igor himself.
     Some quite extraordinary films of Igor Charkovsky’s early work have been distributed all over the world: two month old babies being thrown in the air and caught again, two month old babies standing, six month old children who can walk, seven month old children who have started talking… using practices tried and tested on his own daughter, Igor introduced the concept of newborn babies eating and even sleeping in and under the water, holding their breath naturally on their own. By April 1992 the systems had been refined and were demonstrated through an amazing marathon race by one and a half year old Vasya Razenkov. This was held in the presence of specialists, recorded on video and fixed into Russian Record Books. At one and a half years of age, Vasya swam 33km 200 metres in a school swimming pool, a period of 15 hours 2 minutes and 28 seconds of non-stop swimming. It wasn’t a survival experiment: like a dolphin, the physical state of the young record-holder became even better the more he swam. The aim of this experiment was to attract attention to the great resources of the human body, and to present the new possibilities of the Charkovsky birth and early training methods with regard to their effects on human health.
     Stalwarts of this ‘Russian method’ of birthing and post birth water activity are convinced that ‘water births’ and early water experiences provide a special direction towards harmonious body development, such that water babies are strong, sturdy and physically mature earlier than other babies, and remain advanced throughout their lives with a high working capacity and high bioenergetics. As they grow they are more easily able to accept new conditions than other children, and negative factors don’t seem to influence them too much. More importantly, babies’ and young children’s anxiety comes down to a very low level. The swimming affects the subconscious and seems to help increase the ability to manage one’s own mind and emotions and overcome inner fears. ‘Water babies’ birthed and trained the Russian way are considered to be more philosophically minded, friendlier and more helpful to others. They are psychologically strong, incredibly energetic and have increased creative capacity.
     Based on the materials which arose from Charkovsky’s investigations, popular water birth films were produced and many books and articles were written on gentle water birthing and spiritual obstetrics. The Diploma of the University of California was given to the President of the World Association “Aqua Culture”. The Academician of RAEN (Institute of Regenerative Biomedicine of Russian Academy of Natural Sciences) gave Igor Charkovsky the honorary title of “Doctor” and called him the “creator of a revolutionary method of child-bearing, returning people to their nature sources”. In 1982 in New Zealand, during the International Symposium devoted to children’s adaptation to the water environment, Igor was universally recognised as a founder of the water birthing method.

Dolphins as Midwives
     In 1979 the future of Russian water birthing was about to change. Charkovsky and his team had taken a woman to the Black Sea for an underwater birth. As she was sitting in two feet of water and about to give birth, three dolphins suddenly appeared, pushed everyone out of the way and ‘took over’. They scanned the length of the woman’s body, which somehow relaxed the mother and child, and soon she gave birth with no pain or fear. Needless to say, the human midwives in attendance were fairly shocked. This event opened up the new practice of ‘dolphin midwifery’, which may sound strange, but fits in with the new breed of super-children currently coming into existence. Since this incident in 1979, Igor began a series of experiments with dolphins present at the birth of children.
     In 1982 Elena Tonetti, one of the leaders of the “conscious water birth” movement in Russia, was working closely with Igor Charkovsky. She was born and raised in Russia but now lives in the United States. She recalls, “By the time I met Charkovsky he only had about a dozen water births under his belt. In the early eighties the whole movement of “conscious waterbirth” exploded in Russia. During cold months of the year women were giving birth at home in their apartments and every summer we organised birth camps at the Black Sea, in the middle of nowhere, far away from tourists and traffic. Often in shallow lagoons, where water is warm and clean and there are dolphins aplenty to play with. Our focus was the search for ways to eliminate complications during delivery. As a result of that search a most profound programme of preparation for natural birth was developed, which benefited not only new babies, but also adults who wanted to heal the consequences of their own dramatic entrance into our world.”
     According to the records of the Charkovsky team, dolphins are automatically attracted to pregnant women and very young children. As many people are already aware, dolphins can also help heal people with mental and psychological problems. Igor believes that the dolphins, through their benign energy, take the stress off the baby and mother alike during and after the birth. These intelligent mammals calm down any woman in childbirth, taking away the exertion, anxiety and fear factors, and create a common bio-field. Dolphins also seem to have an affinity with the baby in the womb. “They sense when a woman is about to give birth and gather round. They give both the mother and child a sense of protection and safety,” says Charkovsky. It is a pity that it is hard to meet wild dolphins at the right time and in the right place! The Charkovsky team believes that when one is born in the sea in a dolphin’s presence, that particular midwife dolphin comes back to the spot on the baby’s birthday to wait for him or her. Children who are born with the help of dolphins, at least as far as the cases documented in Russia show, become extraordinary children. Most of them have IQ’s of over 150 (genius range), are extremely emotionally stable, or have physically strong bodies; they are superior to other children in one way or another. Charkovsky and his team are aware that having a baby with the help of wild dolphins in the open sea requires extreme care and experienced supervisors, with a safer alternative being with dolphins in captivity, but sadly these captive dolphins lack the freedom of their wild cousins.

Saint or Quack
     As a Russian male midwife, Igor Charkovsky has so far assisted in over 2,000 underwater births. Some people call Igor a genius and a saviour, a talented scientist and specialist, yet others who oppose his approach think that he is a barbarian with unproved and cruel methods. His baby-yoga and trainings make some viewers panic, and some criticise by suggesting that Igor is in a hurry, that he is trying to prove the benefits of his theory to the world but that in doing so, he has wanted to stop at nothing and thus has gone too far.
     There have also been negative stories, reportedly by eye-witnesses who participated in these experiments in the Black Sea. Some described wandering for a long time with numerous pregnant women, trying unsuccessfully to find any dolphins. Some opponents to this system of water birthing in the sea also report that ruses were used during film production to try and create better impressions for viewers of the films. We cannot tell for sure whether dolphins can sense a pregnant woman from long distances and rush straight away to where she is waiting in the sea, as Charkovsky perhaps suggests, but what is now certain is that dolphins can sense when a woman is about to give birth if they are in close proximity, and that dolphins give protection and a sense of safety to both the mother and the child.
     Modern childbirth can be a painful experience for all involved. Usually in the maternity hospital in Russia a woman lies horizontally on her back, helpless such that she cannot even turn. Before there were hospitals, women gave birth in different positions, for example while squatting or on her knees... A vertical position was more comfortable and felt more natural to the mother. However, nowadays most Russian midwives will deliver the baby only on these uncomfortable horizontal beds or platforms. Imagine other animals of nature allowing someone to ‘force’ them to give birth while lying horizontally with their legs in the air and with bright lights all around! As well as the human baby having to deal with the unnatural birth position, conventional hospital methods of delivery usually mean that, in most cases, the baby also has to suddenly deal with the Earth’s gravity; the addition of bright lights and loud sounds both add to the trauma of the mother and baby. Then there are often all the chemicals or artificial vitamins given to the mother, which are waiting at the hospital to be injected into the newborn baby. These unnatural substances also come with a risk.
     The Charkovsky followers believed a logical solution for relieving the impact of delivery was to have the baby’s head emerge into a buffer zone of warm water, thus giving its brain some time to adjust to the new post-birth environment. Some women who have given birth in accordance with Charkovsky’s method call the moment of birth ‘a wonder’, ‘a perfect bliss’ and a peak of their sexual life. They say it had a huge psychological meaning and gave them a feeling of spiritual intimacy.

A jump into the unknown!
     Nonetheless, the majority of physicians in Russia and worldwide seem to criticise water birthing, and it is important for any mother-to-be to discuss matters with her doctor or a specialist before deciding on any alternative birthing method.
     Water birthing nowadays is not just a Russian phenomenon. In relatively recent times thousands of underwater births have been carried out in France, England and other countries. Proponents include Igor Charkovsky, Dr. Igor Smirnov and Elena Tonetti in Russia; Dr. Michel Odent M.D. in France; Estelle Meyers in New Zealand; and Dr. Gowri Motha and Binnie Dansby in England. Underwater birthing is now accepted as part of the British Health Services and is recommended for those who anticipate problems with delivery. Many thousands of successful underwater births are testimony to this being a real alternative choice for mothers. The initial enthusiasm for this technique is growing and its benefits for the mother and child are increasingly reported, including being a much more peaceful way to bring a child into its earthly existence.
     However, the Charkovsky methods continue to pose many more issues for debate than simply whether births should take place in water. Dolphins add a magical dimension, and the preand post-birth water training and exercises yet another. I have set out below some of the arguments for and against water birthing and water babies, but these do not really take into account the revolutionary aspects of the Charkovsky methods – they relate more to simple water births.
     I myself find the subject of water birthing very interesting, as I am expecting my first baby in the near future. When I was asked to be the researcher and write of this article (after some initial hesitation and scepticism), I very carefully studied all the information I could find. Yet I’m afraid of leaving the reader alone with the question “Where is the truth, what should I believe in?” I am now more aware that water birthing provides an alternative to the normal conditioned hospital approach to delivery. However I only recently considered this alternative birth process, and as I began researching it in my eighth month of pregnancy I can’t say that I’m ready to try this method yet, taking into the account some of the possible (albeit slight) risks. Maybe it would take longer for me to adjust psychologically, given all the prior conditioning about the ‘need’ for hospitals. However, I admit that my research indicates certain benefits, particularly with regard to the psychological and physical effects of water birthing. And I cannot explain the logic but... but I feel a strong desire to go to the St.Petersburg dolphinarium, to look into the eyes of these enigmatic creatures and maybe to find the answer there.
     For those of you who are interested in finding out more information, you can type ‘water births’, ‘dolphins as midwives’ or ‘Igor Charkovsky’ into the Google search engine on the internet and have a look at the pages it brings up, or you can go to the next seminar on this subject in July/ August 2006 at the Black Sea.

There is also a facility for water-birthing here in St.Petersburg: the medical centre “Raduga” (Rainbow), located at the Maternity Hospital No15 at 12 Vavilovyh Street, telephone (812) 555 1090, www.raduga-birth.spb.ru