vaginal breech delivery at home - any positive stories?

[teamB2011]

i have hired IM who is experienced in vaginal delivery so going to give it a go. would love to hear others' positive stories.

My IM was very pro natural home births but wouldn't do breech homebirth.

No experience but I r

I appreciate this isn't what you have asked for OP but I would really implore you to reconsider. That sounds like a total disaster waiting to happen and I struggle to see how that could be a safe and responsible decision to make for your baby.

Sorry, I read a book called 'stand up and deliver' by a woman who wanted (can't remember if she was successful) a breech birth at home with an IM. Maybe Amazon it.

Experience in vaginal delivery or breech vaginal delivery?

I'd like to think I would have a Homebirth if it was me but it woukd be heavily dependent on my confidence that the position was correctly diagnosed and the experience and ability of my caregiver to be accurate about continually assessing the position, as well as their expertise overall AND the ability or otherwise to get emergency care quickly.

How are IMs different from nhs midwives?

Sorry but that's a sweeping statement if ever I saw one. The only IM round here trained where I work and them went independent as a newly qualified midwife. She's never seen a breech in her life.

I know who's got the better skills and experience and the more to date emergency drills training out of the two of us.

Even if there were positive stories why would you risk your babies life. It gives me the rage when women put their desire for their "perfect birth "above the safety of their baby.

Soon I know no-one who has risked their baby's life for their own 'perfect birth' and I doubt very much this happens.

Women make choices that will increase the chance of giving their baby and them, in that order, the optimal outcome. That their decisions are not ones you woukd make does not make them selfish as you imply.

IM in general, are not more experienced in breech births or any births for that matter. However some are able to specialise and have received extra training to give them the skills that NHS midwives do not normally have.

And you have more control and more flexibility to listen to your body with IM. What NHS midwife would be comfortable with a birth plan that said 'no McRoberts' for example? It's the first thing NHS midwives resort to yet there is no evidence that it is better than some of the alternatives, particularly the 'hands-off' ones.

Starlight no neither do I personally, but it sounds very much like that's what the op is planning.

Birth is in general pretty safe wherever and however we do it, but it is more often than not the interventions that cause the problems that women have to be 'saved from'.

Which is a slightly ironic statement, because one of the sub-group analyses of the Term Breech Trial was that in countries with a low perinatal mortality, the relative safety of CS over VB was more marked than in countries with an already high rate of mortality.

I don't think anyone is saying that people who don't run or participate in trials 'has nothing to offer women', only that the plural of anecdote is not data. Individuals' stories hold true for them, but the bigger picture on a population level may be very different. (This is why the statement "your body is designed / has evolved to give birth" is both very true, and completely false! As a woman in the 20th century, you are part of a group of people with a tendency to physical attributes that lend themselves to childbearing - because those with unfavourable ones have often been selected out along the way. However, there is no guarantee that your individual specific body is built to deliver any given specific baby you are carrying. Hence the high maternal mortality and fistula rates from obstructed labour in other parts of the world.) Most people base decisions on the overall population risk data, rather than assuming they'll be the 1 in X, for good or for bad. Some don't, which is completely their decision. It's their bodies and their fetuses. But let's not pretend that 'natural' birth is always inherently safer.

Is your IM telling you what you want to hear because you are paying her?

Sorry just thinking out loud and playing devils advocate.

Very timely, if you go to sarawickham.com there is an article on the Hannah Term Breech Trial and why it is a flawed and worrying piece of research with links to other academic articles.

My biggest concern would be the lack of experience that midwives (and doctors) now have in vaginal breech deliveries. Vaginal breech deliveries have many more things which can go wrong and we have become deskilled in managing these.

I would want to know much more about the midwife's experience in delivering babies in this position.

Mary Cronk is very experienced in vaginal breech deliveries but is retired as far as I am aware. Even then she would be alert for the smallest sign of problems and she is very vocal about how important these are. She does not hesitate to relocate to hospital in those situations. I recall her biggest warning sign is descent.....if the presenting part does not descend well in the early stages of labour then she automatically transfers Mum to hospital for delivery.

Also check out Angela Horn's Homebirth site as there will be research there regarding breech deliveries. It might be older (10 years +) though.

OP, if you're still reading this thread, I just wanted to say that you've been in my thoughts over the weekend and I really hope your birth goes well, however it happens in the end.

reikizen do you mean the article "hands off midwifery and the art of balance"? I can't find anything else more relevant on breech births but even this one hardly says anything. Even as a piece of anecdotal evidence the author says nothing that I can see about how many breech births she has attended, what the outcomes were, how hands off compares with interventions ,etc. The references appear irrelevant to the risk of brech births question, they are primarily about the definition of hands off.

I fully support a woman's right to chose any kind of birth she wants from free birthing a transverse baby to ELCS, but I think we have a responsibility to make informed medical decisions.

Hello,
I am pro-birth choice but believe that one should research and make an informed decision on where she should deliver if there are things that would be deemed 'high risk' (I wouldn't want to 'just give it a go' without fully researching the subject area).
I am planning a home birth (2nd time, planned one with first but didn't happen as meconium) but if baby was breech and wouldn't turn with acupuncture etc. then I would have a planned gentle section. I do believe that breech babies can and are born safely vaginally, however (and Mary Cronk agrees with this) as soon as there is any medical intervention then the risks increase (most consultants would advocate 'trial' that would be fully monitored therefore limiting movement and inhibiting the birthing process - usually have the forceps waiting, episiotomy etc.) and as I wouldn't feel confident having a breech birth at home, I would have to go into a hospital where the birth would inevitably become medicalised and more risky.
www.homebirth.org.uk may be a place to start.

Sorry i did not come back to the thread. I have now had our beautiful daughter so not had time to get back on forum. For what it is worth, i had very experienced IMs and the home birth was a beautiful experience. Baby and me were safe, our daughter achieved 10 on apgar and i had no tearing whatsoever. I had weighed and assessed the risks- having been in contact with Jane Evans, Mary Cronk and Shawn Walker - all leading people in field of breech and very pleased i trusted my instincts. Thanks for everyone's input.

congratulations!! really pleased for you-glad everything went well :-) x

Wonderful news congratulations!