[Water birth. Clinical and practical advice]

Water labor and/or birth are more and more requested and with the increased number of pregnant women choosing water-birth it is necessary to define advice for a safe use of this method of birth-assistance, in order to prevent any possible connected complication. The criteria for admission or exclusion to water labor and/or birth, correlated with maternal-fetal clinical aspects, hygienic aspects, legal-medicine aspects, are indicated. The structural, technical, organizing, specific requirements, in addition those of every delivery room, and considered important for water birth places, are underlined.