HONOLULU (Web Desk) – Water births have become common place in hospitals, however some mothers are taking to the sea in a hope to enhance their experience of labour.
Extraordinary Births, a Channel 4 documentary meets the women who are giving birth in the ocean with only dolphins as ‘aides’.
Katie Piper reveals in the documentary that spiritual healer Dorina Rosin and her partner Maika Suneagle, from Hawaii, plan to have a ‘dolphin-assisted’ birth.
The couple who run a healing retreat on Hawaii’s Big Island, believe in the healing power of nature and offer CDs in their retreat that include dolphin song, the Mail Online reported. The pair also say their baby can speak ‘dolphin’.
Katie told the Times: “I found the dolphin people a bit out-there but they seemed so happy and the woman was so relaxed.
“I just thought everybody was wonderful and it was all a bit of an eye-opener.”
Ahead of their birth in the ocean the couple also attended a 38-week blessing where Dorina took to the water heavily pregnant to swim alongside the mammals.
Although the parents-to-be claim that it is a more relaxing and natural way to deliver a child experts warn that it is extremely dangerous.
They claim that dolphins, especially in the wild, are unpredictable, dangerous and not to be trusted around a pregnant woman – or an infant child, for that matter.
“This has to be, hands down, one of the worst natural birthing ideas anyone has ever had,” science journalist Christie Wilcox wrote in Discover in 2013.
She cites research showing that dolphins will “toss, beat, and kill small porpoises or baby sharks for no apparent reason other than they enjoy it, though some have suggested the poor porpoises serve as practice for killing the infants of rival males”.
“Is this an animal you want to have at your side when you’re completely vulnerable?” she asks.
However for the expectant couple they could think of no better way of introducing their newborn to the world.
Dorina explains on her blog Song of Trust, that she found the animals to have strong healing properties.
She explains: “In 2011 and 2014 I had the privilege to learn from and with wild and free dolphins and Humpback whales in Hawaii who transformed and healed me in a very profound way.
“I felt deeply called to spend two times three months in nature – mostly by myself – and to deeply connect to this magical place of beauty and transformation inside and outside which called me home.”
In a video posted last month on YouTube, entitled ‘the dolphins came to give Maika and Dorina their love and play on this beautiful day in the Big Island waters!’ the couple are seen swimming with snorkels and flippers alongside the mammals.
The mum-to-be, who wears a long-sleeved top and orange bikini bottoms, is seen mimicking the movement of the dolphins as she swims alongside them.
Dorina’s story isn’t the only one to raise eyebrows in the eye-opening documentary. One couple opts for the unconventional Lotus birth where the baby stays attached to the placenta until it falls off naturally and is preserved by with herbs.
Other mothers-to-be include bodybuilders who continue their craft throughout their pregnant and a dancer who chooses to dance on stage during her gestation.
