Turning Your Breech Baby with Hypnobirthing
If your baby is presenting with his backside or feet first at full term it’s known as a breech position. Up until 36/37 weeks baby has lots of room to flip from head down to sideways, handstands and somersaults especially if you’ve given birth before (vaginally or by cesarean). It’s estimated that around 4-5% of babies will stay breech at full term.
What Does That Mean For You?
It may mean an unexpected cesarean birth depending on what options are available to you. Given the lack of postpartum support in many countries due to Covid stacking the odds in your favor to avoid major abdominal surgery sounds quite reasonable especially for safe non-invasive approaches such as hypnosis.
A Life Out of Balance? How Hypnosis May Help.
Anecdotally it’s been my experience that over extended, stressed fearful parents who move house, or renovate their home during pregnancy have very demanding jobs and don't seem to have much time for their pregnancy tend to have more breech presentations. You know who you are - you live in your head most of the time. The idea that a life out of balance contributes to baby’s staying breech is also found in various cultural traditions. It's almost as if baby is calling your attention to your pregnancy and without a doubt you have no choice but to put some focus on what's happening with the prospect of potential surgery - especially during a pandemic. In 19th century literature emotions, thoughts and even actions were recognized to influence fetal development and position. The Navajo people believe a baby will be breech if a pregnant woman inverts a rug on her loom (Schwarz 1997).
A Hypnobirthing Solution
In 1984 Mehl provided hypnosis sessions to 100 expectant mothers between 36 & 40 weeks with breech presentations and compared his outcomes to a matched comparison group of women from the same time period and geographical areas. Compared to standard obstetric care 81% of the babies turned head down compared to 48% of the comparison group. What’s even more fascinating is that 1/3 of the women had unsuccessful ECVs (external cephalic version) before they tried hypnosis and 41% were first time parents which tends to have a lower rate of success. If you’re approaching full term and your baby is breech start using the Breech Turn hypnosis session nightly.
Mind & Moxa
My personal recommendation to encourage your baby to move head down is to combine the Breech Turn hypnosis session in the GentleBirth App with Moxa treatment for 10 days. A recent small study from Indonesia suggests Moxa treatment is effective - why not combine both?
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the ‘bladder meridian’ (energy pathway) matures towards the end of pregnancy and encourages your baby to turn head down. The bladder meridian is sometimes associated with the emotion of fear. TCM practitioners suggest that this energy pathway hasn’t matured due to anxiety and fear. Moxibustion is applied to a point on the little toe (see below) to encourage maturation. In this video you’ll learn how to do this treatment at home on your own (very helpful during a pandemic). Talk to an acupuncturist in your area for additional virtual support. Smokeless moxa can be purchased online.
In Caroline Peterson’s thesis we meet Dahlia - a chiropractic pediatrician. Her practice focuses on pregnancy and children’s health so she has extensive experience with breech presentation pregnancies. Additionally, her baby was breech during the latter stage of pregnancy then turned to cephalic presentation after she cut back on the hours she worked. She reflects on her own pregnancy and those of her patients. While she observes uterine constraint plays a role in breech presentation she adds…
“I’ve also found that emotionally there‟s either a high stress that things aren‟t gonna work out or that they’re trying to fight some kind of thing. . . . A lot of moms that come, they’re kinda desperate. They‟re willing to do anything but they‟re also higher strung personalities. . . . It‟s just that they just come in carrying a lot of tension. You can just feel it in their whole body that it’s just, they, things are not in rhythm in their life for whatever reason and they are not, they’re not okay with it so whether they‟re holding it in but it’s just things are not, things haven‟t lined up yet and so . . . and they’re hoping that this baby will, but not address the other things”
So even if you’re the most Type A expectant parent on the planet right now you can develop a more flexible, relaxed mindset by using the GentleBirth App’s daily recommendations. A flexible, pragmatic mindset is one of the characteristics of women with a head down baby at full term. Caroline Peterson’s work also suggests that being present focused and connecting with your baby during pregnancy is associated with more vertex positioned babies. Even if a cesarean does make sense for you developing a more flexible mindset about your expectations and becoming more accepting of things you can’t control (especially with a willful toddler) will save you a lot of gray hairs further down the road.
Given the added stress so many parents are experiencing right now maybe it’s as simple as slowing down, mindfully connecting with your pregnancy and with your baby that will encourage your baby to a head down position. You’ve nothing to lose and everything to gain.
What Happens if My Baby Stays Breech?
Depending on where you live and what options are available to you, having a breech vaginal birth may be an option. Breech birth is considered safe in the hands of a skilled careprovider but even if your careprovider doesn’t offer it that doesn’t mean it’s not offered with other OBs in your area.
Listen here to my interview with Dr Rixa Freeze - Vaginal Breech Birth Expert You can also read several vaginal breech birth stories from a first time parent and one GB parent who has had 2 breech births in the GentleBirth parent’s group.
ECV
Another option is an ECV - external cephalic version. A manual turning of your baby. Several GentleBirth parents have shared their ECV experiences in our private GentleBirth parent’s community.
Dr. Frank Louwen in Germany is a world renowned expert on upright breech vaginal birth and has also published some research on the benefit of a 20 minute hypnosis session just before having an ECV. More babies turned when parents used hypnobirthing before the procedure. 122 women participated, 78 who received a hypnosis intervention prior to ECV, had a 41.6% successful ECV, the women who had no hypnosis before the procedure had a success rate of 27.3%.
Here’s a short video showing how an ECV is performed. Depending on where you are you may be offered an epidural or medication to relax the uterus but this is less common in Europe.
If you’ve tried everything and your baby is still breech talk to your careprovider about giving you some extra time and schedule your cesarean birth for closer to 40 weeks. Set up your profile in the app to Positive Cesarean so you can meet your baby feeling empowered and calm on the big day and use all of the tools to support your recovery after your surgery.