breech first time round

[Heron23]

Hi, my first baby was breeched. what is the likelihood that my second will be breech too? is there a correlation between the two? what about high blood pressure? Thanks!

Can't comment on the blood pressure, but for the breech I think it very much depends on why your DC was breech.

There are a very small number of families with a genetic predisposition to carry breech (there was a family tree in a book I was given to read when DD was breech ["Breech Birth" by Benna Waites"] that covered 3 or 4 generations and showed something like 70% of the babies were breech!). If you have a family history of breech babies then it would be more likely. This is thought to be related to maternal pelvis, but it's so rare there hasn't really been any research.

A bicornate uterus can make it more likely for babies to be carried breech as it's hard for them to turn, but they should have identified that with DC1.

I think most other variables would be child specific - reasons I've seen for a baby being breech include position of placenta, length of cord, baby wrapped in cord a particular way or, as I think happened with my DD, baby just got too big for the space available before getting head down.

The only other one that might repeat would be postural issues with the mother - if you have an asymetry in your spine or pelvis that effects the musculuture around your uterus and can make it harder for baby to turn. If you're very concerned then get to a physio/osteopath/chiropractor and get yourself checked out.

It's certainly far from given that you'll carry anymore babies breech - I've a friend with 4 DCs: the first was a CS as breech, the other 3 head down VBACs.

Good luck

Hi Tangle, i am reassured by your reply. I had none of those physical issues you described. So fingers crossed for the next one!

More often than not breech is just a one off and does not recur. Pre eclampsia is supposed to recur in about 10% of pregnancies, more if it is with a different partner, if it was just a bit of high bp without any other symptoms, not sure.

I saw my midwife this week and my baby's breech (28 weeks) and she said to go to the swimming baths and sit in the water, or get on all fours a lot to encourage the baby to move... sounds crazy.. but I'll give it a whirl in the hope that it might work.

HTH

At 28ks your midwife shouldn't even be palpating for position, let alone worrying you that its breech!! Only 3-4% of babies are breech at term, compared with 20% at 28wks. Your baby will be moving so much now it probably switches between breech and cephalic several times a day.

From my experience, though, it's Catch22 middymee - with me they palpated DD as probably breech from about 28 weeks but said it wasn't an issue till we got to 36+, when they suddenly started talking about CS. I did some homework and had her at home (as a breech) with Independent midwives - but there was still quite a lot of stress involved in making that decision at that stage.

Yes, most babies will turn before birth and I can see why they don't want to worry all the mums with bubs that will, but retrospectively I wish I'd been more proactive around the 30 week mark and maybe tried some complementary therapies (moxibustion, etc) before she ran out of wiggle room.