“If I do not remain active, I will only be snacking and doing Google searches on babies and pregnancies,” says Kalki Koechlin, over a phone call from Mumbai, after a seven-hour work day. “I am rehearsing for a play right now and it keeps me engaged,” adds the 35-year-old actor, who has essayed roles in Gully Boy,Margarita with a Straw, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara,Waiting and many more.
Soon, she will be part of the all-woman cast in Rehaan Engineer’s stage adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya , set to début as Sounding Vanya at the Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa on December 15.
“After that I will head straight to the Assagao Birthing Centre run by Ursula Corinna Stahlhofen (a German midwife). My partner and I will take individual and joint classes with her to understand how labour and contractions work, basic requirements during delivery such as what and how to pack, and things after post-birth, like breast feeding and bathing the baby, the registration, vaccinations...” she says.
Currently in the third trimester of her pregnancy, Kalki is expecting her first child with her partner Guy Hershberg, an Israeli classical pianist. With January 26, 2020, as the expected date of delivery, Kalki plans to take multiple alternative classes in hypno and music therapy, pre-natal yoga, swimming and exercises for a month at the naturalist and holistic centre nestled in greenery. “I want to be away from city life, noise and pollution and be in the calming lap of nature during my pre- and post-delivery weeks,” she says, explaining why she chose this unconventional way of birthing.
Going natural
Kalki is perhaps the first Bollywood actor who has opted for water birth, says her Mumbai-based gynaecologist Dr Sheetal Sabharwal, who set up Tulip Women’s Health Care Centre, India’s first water birth clinic, in 2003. “Water birthing is not uncommon over the world, but it has not picked up in India because a woman’s journey of pregnancy is essentially governed by the entire family in our society, and fears and doubts linger,” says Dr Sabharwal.
What people need to understand is that labour is not a disease that requires medical intervention but a natural process that requires medical assistance, she says.
Dr Sabharwal strongly believes that every woman deserves a natural option and needs to be informed about alternative ways to give birth. In the last 16 years, 100-odd women have chosen to have water births in her clinic. “These are mostly young and well-informed independent women who are pro-natural remedies,” she adds.
Kalki, who has been with her through her pregnancy, she says, is a motivated and engaged mom-to-be. “She has read enough material and has friends who opted for water birthing. She was clear and determined from the beginning,” she says.
Kalki says she loves water and “the idea of relaxing in a warm pool is kinder both on the mother-to-be and the baby-to-be-born.” “If the mother is stress-free, the baby will also be born stress-free. What better can you ask for?” she says.
“My mother brought me into the world through natural birth at home three decades ago. It was 5 am, there was no electricity, my dad was holding a kerosene lamp. It was quite rustic and also the environment at Auroville was different with lots of naturopathy and alternative living styles. It seemed appropriate for my parents,” says Kalki. “You cannot avoid the legacy in motherhood,” she laughs.
Though pregnancy and motherhood changes parents’ lives, it is important for every person to keep living a regular life, insists Kalki. “The baby of course is going to be a crucial part of our lives, but it does not mean that we stop everything else in order to deal with parenthood.”
She had morning sickness in the beginning, and felt weak from even the smallest activities. “My work commitments made me anxious and I lost weight in my first trimester,” she says. But, she adds, when you know a new life is being created inside you, you go back to the basics and become much more conscious about how you want to be. If you have a bad day, the baby goes through the bad day too with you; if you scream, the baby hears you scream, so you become much more aware of how you want to treat yourself and others.”
In between her good and bad days, what keeps Kalki happy and positive is her work and music, as well as conversations with her gynaecologist, midwife and mother. She says the book What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff and Sharon Mazel also helped.
“And of course, I have been extremely lucky to have the most loving, caring and supportive boyfriend,” she says and adds, “As D-day draws closer, it is natural to become anxious. But I am not thinking too much, just taking it one day at a time.”
What is water birthing?
Black and white image of a young mother embracing her newborn son after giving birth at home.
It is also referred to as hydrotherapy, where the baby is born through normal vaginal birth with no or reduced use of medication such as epidurals or drugs to speed up contractions.
When a woman starts getting labour pain, she gets into a bath tub (not deeper than two feet) or the inflated baby pool that has warm water controlled at 36 to 37 degrees C (the normal body temperature).
The buoyancy in water is said to reduce the pain and length of labour, making it less traumatic and more relaxing for the mother.
The mother remains in water till the child is born. The post-partum blood loss is less than a traditional delivery, and damage to the perineum is minimised.
It is considered a peaceful transit for the baby who’s been in amniotic fluid for nine months and so there is no immediate shock of air.
It is recommended for women who are fit and have no high-risk factors such as hypertension and diabetes and are not carrying twins.
Water birthing as a technique is largely assisted by midwives. A few doctors in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bengaluru are now encouraging the natural water birthing process.
