Breech Babies: Is There Anything You Can Do?
Reduce sitting time to help your baby get in the right position! Credit: MJTR (´･ω･)
What to Know About Breech Babies
1. I’ve had two babies in breech now. I’ve read that having one predisposes you to having another. Am I fated to only have babies that refuse to turn around? What can I do to prevent it next time around?
No, not at all. The thing to remember about babies is they turn themselves—it’s not something that you, the mother, is in charge of doing. The mother, however, dictates how much space a baby has to turn based on her muscular tension and movement patterns, as well has habitual posture. The fact that you’ve had two breech babies tells me that the space your muscles are providing could be improved…more so than you somehow make babies that are stubborn and refuse to participate in their delivery.
There are alignment markers you can change to get more space which means your next baby (are you trying to tell me something?) could be head down, no problemo.
2. What do you think of the usual techniques for turning breech babies (external version)? What about more alternative methods? The Webster technique? Moxibustion? Anything you would recommend from a biomechanical standpoint?
Manual turning of a breech baby, also known as External Cephalic Version, is really the last go-to when it comes to dealing with a potential breech birth. This procedure requires quite a bit of intervention and can tend to result in a cesarean because rupturing the amniotic sac is not uncommon.
Before that route, there are many, less invasive more successful techniques that deal with pelvic floor as psoas muscle relaxation. There are many different techniques that attempt to aid a mommy-to-be with muscular relaxation or skeletal adjustments. I’m a big fan of SpinningBabies.com, where you can get a large overview of the research and techniques to try.
The most simple and more recently recognized-in-the-research ways of turning a babe are what I’ve mentioned above—postural maintenance throughout pregnancy. A healthy baby has the ability to turn itself, so keeping an optimal uterine environment throughout your pregnancy, but especially during that last trimester, is essential. Funky pelvic and hip angles, thrusting your ribs up and out, tight psoas muscles and sitting the bulk of the day are all fetal-space compromisers.
3. We spend a lot of time sitting. Does posture have anything to do with breech presentation? On the other end of the spectrum, how about women who are really active?
Sitting results in tight psoas muscles, which in turn prevent the pelvis and uterus from maintaining biomechanical neutral. Reducing sitting time is crucial during that last trimester. Standing work stations are great if you’re needing to work (or write!) all day on the computer. But even more than not sitting, walking a few miles a day is also on the to-do list. It’s not just about exercise, but about the specific loads the baby is placing on the uterus and the loads the uterus is placing on the pelvic floor. It all has to be there for this amazing thing to happen!
Really active women who get their exercise every day still tend to sit quite a bit. So we want to make sure that even active ladies reduce their sitting time. That all being said, one of the newer risk factors for hypertonic muscles of the psoas and pelvic floor are those who have done a ton of core strengthening. More core strength, when it comes to the mechanisms of birth, isn’t always better—it can actually be a hindrance. We try to teach our students that more tension doesn’t equal strength. It’s just more tension. And you don’t want that tension to be affecting the natural processes of birth. It really helps to relax those muscles (Don’t worry! You can still be extremely fit without being a ball of muscular tension!) beforehand.
Did you have a baby turn at the last minute? What, if anything, did you do to help with positioning? —Nicole