breech at 37 weeks

[nello]

Hello,

Is anyone else in a similar situation? My pregnancy seems to have progressed fine up to now, but last week discovered the baby was still head up. Not sure what this will mean in terms of birth, the doctor is still hoping that the baby will turn otherwise he spoke of either feet first birth or c-section. Has anyone been in a similar situation?

Feeling a little bit apprehensive about it all!

Thanks :)

Has anyone mentioned the possibility of turning your baby?

I am actually living in Mexico at the moment, so things are a little different here in terms of medical care, and no, it's not been mentioned. I see my doctor next week so I'll ask him about this.

Its called ECV, I had it done successfully at 37 weeks for my breech baby, it doesnt work for everyone though. See my experience last year

Also try looking at www.spinningbabies.com for advice re how to get your baby to turn themselves.

I have just had a breech baby. I had a c section as the doctor tried the ECV but it didn't work for me.

I really didn't want a section but it actually turned out to be a really good birth and after the 3rd degree tear and the way I felt after DS's birth, I would go down the section route again if I were to have any others.

Good luck.

I've just gone today and they told me my baby is breech (I'm 36+4) but I'm already booked in for a section.

Midwife today said that they would not have been happy doing a breech delivery vaginally here and I would be getting sent to see the consultant and having a scan if I wasn't already booked in for my section.

DD1 was born as a planned breech home birth using IMs. After doing a lot of reading and thinking, we decided that (for us) breech birth with MWs confident and competent in breech birth was a better option than a CS - and both of those were preferable to a vaginal breech delivery (which is all the NHS seemed to contemplate other than CS).

Our conclusion was that vaginal breech birth is not intrinsically any more dangerous than a CS (the Term Breech Trial, published by Hannah et al^ in The Lancet in 2000, that found to the contrary has been widely discredited), but breech birth without skilled birth attendants is a very different story - and in the UK at least that's now the biggest reason for recommending CS for breech.

Have you come across the writings of Mary Cronk? She's one of the UK's breech birth experts and has written a number of articles. This is well worth reading to understand the range of approaches to vaginal breech that exist - as I said above, we were very happy to try a vaginal breech birth, but a medicalised vaginal breech delivery was not an option. Unfortunately the terms are not standardised and so I'd want to be crystal clear that all the Dr's involved had the same understanding of what was likely to happen at a breech birth.

Good luck - we found the vaginal/CS decision to be incredibly hard to make, but just had to the best we could for our family and our circumstances at the time.

I had breech at 41 week but she was head down at 40 weeks, breech at 39 weeks, head down at 38 weeks and breech at 37.

Get scrubbing the floor, handstands in the pool and acupuncture if you can. My doc wouldn't turn her (ecv) past 36 weeks and no-one will deliver breech here so section was my only choice (plus she was late and big!) but try the above and it might work!

Good luck

I love Tangle. Snap with my DD, and I always feel like a bit of a militant natural home birth freak!

Sounds like your decision is even harder to make, given your location and the potential lack of experience. I would first of all make sure you know your baby's exact presentation (full/frank/footling breech etc...) then you'll be in a better position to research.

If you can get hold of a copy of a book called Breech Birth by Benna Waites, I thoroughly recommend it. It has a thorough discussion of all the available research, and how it might be applicable to your individual situation.

Good luck!

I'm 35 weeks and my baby's breech too, and I know what you mean about feeling apprehensive. It's really helped me to read CrapBag's recent threads (do a search on breech), but I'm still finding the uncertainty of it all a bit stressful. It also helps me a bit to think of it in terms of birth always being uncertain and down to luck - you don't know how it's going to end up even if you start off with the 'normal' birth you want (for example I have a friend who had a trouble-free pregnancy, started off with the labour she wanted but then ended up with a C-section after 35 hours....). It's just that in our situation the worry/uncertainty is all drawn out, and for me that's the killer - I'm completely preoccupied with it at the moment. I think for doctors and midwives it's all so routine that they can forget how scary this uncertainty and the prospect of a CS or possibly difficult birth can be, as they see so many. It is possible that the baby might turn still, but either way I hope it all goes well for you.

My dd was breech and was turned successfully by a wonderful doctor.

I wasn't warned in advance, but apparently the process of turning the baby can send you into labour so they had to wait until a timeslot was available in case an emergency c-section was necessary (bit scary at the time as completely unprepared). Also, he said that the baby might have turned back by the time I got to the hospital car park. However, I was lucky and she stayed head down and I had a natural delivery exactly on her due date.