Introduction: In today's environment, water birth is a popular choice of delivery method among women in labor. It involves immersing a woman in water at any stage of labor, allowing her to give birth to a child in water. The guidelines for water birth are not precisely defined in Slovenia. In addition, there are no uniformly accepted criteria for the circumstances that ensure a safe birth in water. Purpose: As part of the research, we aim to collect evidence-based information and, based solely on this, create a national protocol enabling health professionals to safely treat women in all Slovenian maternity hospitals that offer water births. Methods: A descriptive work method was used to review professional and scientific literature. We utilized the following databases for the literature search: COBISS+, Google Scholar, PubMed, Medline, and CINAHL. The protocols of maternity hospitals and other institutions were searched using Google, through the websites of foreign institutions. The search for protocols was conducted in English. We employed the advanced search option with the terms "guidelines" AND "water birth" OR "water immersion". The literature used in the diploma thesis was limited to the past 10 years and the hospital protocols to the past 3 years. We included literature with full content accessibility. Results: The prepared national protocol describes the duties of the midwife during the individual stages of water birth. It defines the work of a midwife and describes the best solutions in a certain phase of childbirth, according to research findings. It supports midwives in the professional and safe management of childbirth in water. Discussion and conclusion: In the diploma thesis, we designed a uniform national protocol for the management of birth in water. This assists midwives and other health workers in the professional, uniform, and safe medical treatment of women. We also defined the inclusion and exclusion criteria, which are determined according to risk factors. The assessment of risk factors can be carried out during pregnancy and repeated before delivery.
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