A pain-relieving facility for pregnant women while they give birth is expected to become available in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong Province.

A delivery room that will allow women to give birth in water will be opened in the second half of this year.

The Guangdong Provincial Maternal and Child Care Hospital will spend several million yuan in building the first delivery room of this kind in the city, according to Zhang Xiaozhuang, chief of the hospital.

The room, which will be about 60 square meters in size, will be equipped with water filtration and disinfection systems, a large bathing tub and a separate home-like room for rest, Zhang said.

The water in the tub, disinfected and kept at a constant temperature, will have a soothing effect, relieving the tension and pain a woman experiences before and during labor.

It will also reduce delivery time and potential injury to newborn babies, he said.

A baby should find the pool easy to adapt to since it is similar to its mother's womb. There is no risk of babies drowning, he said.

The key to operating the delivery room will be to exert strict control over the disinfection process, he said.

Not all expecting women, however, are suitable for an underwater delivery. That depends on the physical conditions of both mothers and their babies, experts said.

The price for having a delivery of this kind could be another reason for hesitation. It is estimated to be more than the cost for a caesarean operation at the hospital, which is usually more than 5,000 yuan (US$600).

A pregnant woman with just three months to go before delivery told China Daily she would have a water birth only when a significant amount of positive data about the safety and ease of such deliveries was available.

(China Daily May 10, 2005)