While a woman in labor relaxes in a warm pool, free from gravity's pull on her body, and with sensory stimulation reduced, her body is less likely to secrete stress-related hormones. This allows her body to produce the pain- inhibitors, endorphins, that compliment labor. Guatemala The hormones that are released during stress, noradreneline and catecholamines, actually raise the blood pressure and can inhibit or slow labor. Being more relaxed physically, a laboring woman is able to relax mentally. Many women, midwives and doctors acknowledge the analgesic effect of water.
Women achieve a level of comfort in the water that in turn reduces their levels of fear and stress.
Women's perception of pain is greatly influenced by their levels of anxiety. When labor becomes physically easier, a woman's ability to calmly concentrate is improved, and she is able to focus inward on the birth processes. This is a positive result unknown in hospitals not equipped for water birthing. Many women report being better able to concentrate once they get into the water. Doctors and midwives who attend waterbirths find that the mere sight and sound of water pouring into the tub helps some women release whatever inhibitions were slowing the birth, at times so quickly that the birth occurs even before the pool is filled.