Watching a child birth video can be one of the most informative and rewarding experiences of your pregnancy.

Child Birth Videos inform, encourage, and empower.

While every birth is different, every birth story has a message that can help you discover something that you want, something that you need and something that you desire for your own child birth.

Personally, I found myself searching for a good child birth video back in 1995 but I could only find hospital based births with intervention at every stage. I knew this was not the kind of birth I wanted but the kind of child birth video's that I wanted just didn't seem to exist.

Asking around, I soon found that some women had filmed their own births and were happy to share this experience with me by lending me their birth videos. This is where I found the powerful images of women birthing with midwives, without intervention and in calm, supportive environments. Birth Videos became a major source of information and support for me.

In recent years, we are lucky enough to now have some very well produced birth videos. Midwives are birthing mothers have taken the initiative and understand the importance of how powerful, the image of a positive natural birth can be for pregnant women.

Birth Into Being is one of the most extraordinary Child Birth Videos I have ever seen. In this film, Russian midwives support women birthing in the ocean with dolphins as well as at home. You may not want a birth in the ocean, but you will be inspired by the amount of trust and the connection with nature that these women have. This video shows us what it means to start babies in a life of connection to spirit that is both gentle and powerful. The footage will take your breath away. The concept is so good and pure it will change you. While these techniques are not for everyone, they have the potential to open the door to natural birth for all families and allow them to consider the birth experience in terms of "love, light and consciousness."

The Art of Birth Video by Shea Caplice is a beautiful documentary that follows four Australian women and their partners as they prepare for and give natural birth. Two are filmed in birth centres and two are filmed at home. Each couple has a unique experience. You can purchase this child birth video from our pre-natal care section in our on-line Pregnancy Shop.

Catherine Young from The Compleat Mother Magazine compiled her readers child birth videos in 1998 into a single video experience. All videos are produced at home so the lighting and sound isn't great but focus on that and you miss the point of the video. If you want to see how mothers give birth in water, plain and simple, taped in the natural homebirth settings, then by all means, buy this child birth video; you will be glad you did.

Recently, Di Diddle from Victoria in Australia shared her wonderful birth video called Dusty's Day Out. What a wonderful home birth video this one is! Thank you Di for sharing your birth on video and showing how empowering it can be to deal with the pain of contractions in a humorous, supportive way, with a wonderful home birth outcome.

To see a woman breathing through each contraction, to be held by supportive partners, to birth in water and to be talked to with respect and calm, is how birth is meant to be. I strongly recommend watching as many child birth videos as you can to support your learning journey about pregnancy and birth.