Naughty Breech Baby (Part Two)

Georgia Drew - 18 May 20

Naughty Breech Baby (Part Two)

This is part two of ‘Naughty Breech Baby’, if you haven’t read part one of this blog have a read here.

Could I turn this baby around?

The following are all weird and wonderful methods we tried which have had varying success for others:

• Handstands down the end of the bed (don’t laugh), on all fours with your bum in the air. It’s not a great look, 10-15 minutes most evenings before I felt dizzy.
• Rocking back and forth on all fours for 10-15 minutes each time, similar to the above without the nausea!
• Moxibustion, the only method mentioned/advised by the NHS as studies have shown it to be 66% successful. It’s a form of Chinese acupuncture but instead of needles a practitioner or in my case Jack haha, applies gentle heat in the form of a stick which looks like a cigar, to your little toe’s pressure point for 30 minutes a time. Little disclaimer, the sticks stink but luckily the weather was nice and warm by the time I was heavily pregnant. So we performed this outside with me laying on a sunbed (was quite relaxing for me). Wear old clothes as the smell clings to them for weeks, smokeless sticks are available but we never tried those.
• Pelvic tilt/Ironing board technique, lying on the floor raising your hips with your feet planted on the ground and your knees bent. Another way we also tried was to place an ironing board on the edge of the sofa so it’s in a tilted position and lie on it with your head resting on a pillow down the lower end and feet elevated for 20 minutes at a time. Looks ridiculous!
• Lots of swimming this relaxes your hips and tilts your pelvis downwards which can help your baby turn. I went to an aquanatal puddleducks class once a week which is great for meeting other pregnant mums too!
• Bouncing & rocking on a gym ball which promotes good posture and can help a baby move into position.

The last resort for us

Needless to say, none of the above worked for us, our midwife recommended a procedure that has a 50% success rate of turning breech babies around. Even if successful there is no guarantee that the baby will stay head down.

This procedure is called an ECV which stands for External Cephalic Version.

This is where a doctor applies gentle pressure on your abdomen to help your baby turn or somersault in the womb until facing head-first, there’s a lot more to it than the short description I’ve given.

Applying ‘gentle’ pressure was the complete opposite to what I could feel, this is just my experience and I’m in no way saying do not have an ECV because it has been so successful for other women, some don’t feel any pain at all!

It was one of the worst pains I’ve ever felt and this was after having an injection to relax your stomach muscles! The whole process takes a couple of hours before you’re even ready for them to begin manipulating the baby. They’d only been trying for less than a minute and I had to ask the doctor to stop as it was so excruciating. I felt like a failure, I was so upset and kept saying sorry to Jack. We both agreed we’d never opt for this procedure again and left the hospital knowing this was probably the last technique we could try.

Once home, we had time to accept that this is what’s happening and we were thankful our baby was healthy and growing perfectly which is all that really matters.

Although I couldn’t deliver the baby in the way that I’d hoped, I knew things weren’t completely out of my hands, there were still aspects I could control, I wanted to make sure I felt confident going into my c-section so I read up on more than enough information to know what would happen once the day came.

That’s one example of feeling in control, there are other important details that I prepared for leading up to meeting our baby, I plan to speak about these in my next blog.

Georgia Drew

After sharing with other mums, friends and family For You Mummas has quickly become a project of its own. I'm a first time mum, writing personal blogs that my baby can read back when older. For real honest stories, experiences and tips, keep your eyes out for new content! Georgia x

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