Do "OA" babies get stuck like "OP" babies do?

[Beryl98909]

You always hear about women winding up with emergency c sections because their baby is occipit posterior and gets "stuck" in the pelvis (I'm aware that many of these babies aren't actually stuck, it's usually a problem with mom's flat-on-her-back position). I'm just wondering if women with occiput anterior babies also wind up with c sections due to "stuck" babies or is it rare?

Hi OP,
I'm aware that many of these babies aren't actually stuck, it's usually a problem with mom's flat-on-her-back position

Have you been to an NCT class or hypnobirthing where the teacher is pro natural childbirth by any chance?

You sound a bit like me pre birth. I was going to have a spontaneous vaginal delivery because well, I had been told there was no reason why I wouldn't. If I had an active labour, all would be fine.
Except it wasn't and baby did get stuck. Occiput anterior with a small baby. Yes I was on my back but the damage caused by 2 ventouse + 1 forceps was certainly not caused by me being on my back. The reality was that my pelvis was too small with an "abnormally" shaped coccyx in the way. No one knew I have one of those. After birth my sister (identical build) revealed she has the same (her baby was bigger so got stuck higher up and she had an emergency c-section so we never suspected anything).

To be honest if your baby is malpositioned (could be posterior or simply have their hand on their face etc) you are at higher risk of an instrumental delivery which puts you at increased risk of severe tearing (which may lead to urinary and/or bowel incontinence after birth which in some cases don't fully resolve).
For emergency c-section, it all depends how far down the birth canal the baby is. If she's above the ischial spines a c-section is fine. If she's below the spines, she will have to finish her course through the vagina and obstetrician will use instruments. If she's level with the spines you may have a choice (a senior midwife will assess before the obs gives a choice or not).
Mid cavity forceps (or Kiellands) do more damage than low cavity ones.

I'm happy to stand corrected by other posters. I hope this answers your question. All the best

One of my best friends had an OA baby who got stuck and she ended up with a C-section.

I've had two OP babies (anterior uterus, higher chance of OP baby). One of them had their shoulder stuck, but an excruciating manoeuvre by several people managed to get the baby "unstuck", and everything went smoothly from there. The other baby was a perfectly normal delivery. I was also OP when born, and my mother had a textbook 7 hour labour and delivery with me.

sadly there really isn't a good way to measure the pelvic outlet and any baby no matter the position can get stuck.
and lots of women actually like being on their back at some point due to being exhausted or in discomfort in other positions.

Agree with you Oldwitch00, there's no good way of measuring the pelvis outlet and any baby can get stuck

It depends.

LOA babies probably won't.

ROA babies are very likely to give you a much longer, often unproductive-looking first stage of labour aa they niggle all the way round.

I had an OA baby. I wasn't on my back at all until the forceps. He was in such an awful position but too low down for c section. It was really touch and go as to whether it was safer to drag him out or push him back up and do a section. They opted for forceps, but once he was out they realised that they should have done the section, we were just very very fortunate they didn't snap his neck.