OBJECTIVE: To describe women´s experiences and perceptions of giving birth in water.

DESIGN: A qualitative study with in-depth interviews three to five months after the birth. A content analysis of the interviews was made.

SETTING: One city-located hospital in Stockholm, offering waterbirth to low risk women.

PARTICIPANTS: 20 women, 12 primiparas and 8 multiparas, aged 27-39.

MEASUREMENTS AND FINDINGS: The overall theme emerging from the analysis was, "Like an empowering micro-home", which describes the effect of being strengthened, enabled and authorized in the birth process. Three categories were found: "Synergy between body and mind", "Privacy and discretion", and "Natural and pleasant".

KEY CONCLUSIONS: The immersion in warm water provided the women with conditions that helped them to cope and feel confident during labour and birth. The homelike and limited space of a bathtub helped give a relaxed feeling of privacy, safety, control and focus for the women.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: This study contributes to a deeper understanding of what waterbirth offers to women. For some women, waterbirth may be a way to accomplish an empowering and positive birth experience, and could work as a tool that preserves the normality of, and increases self-efficacy in, childbirth.