Breech-ceaserean v active birth! Any experience?

[SnowmAngeliz]

Hello all.
Me again, i seem to be popping up all over lately!
Well as a few may have read yesterday i am 29 weeks pregnant and the baby is breech at the moment. I know it has lots of time to turn but i do like to always be informed of my choices and have been reading up on possible outcomes of breech births.
It seems there are 3 options.

ceaserean
assisted birth (induced and forceps)
or natural birth

so, has anyone any experience of any or views on it??

Mine was "Undiagnosed " breech. Bottom presentation and was pretty awful. You are lucky that you are aware of your babies position.
I know that he was bottom presentation because he was born (by emergency c.section with me having a general anasthetic) with the most horrific bruises around his bottom and hips presumably from me trying to push him out too soon. At least when not fully dilated. I remember bieng told that i was fully dilated at one point. He also had deep gouges on his bottom cheeks from the instrument used to break my waters. These gouges are now horrid scars.
Im grateful that he was breech because these scars would have been on his head/face if he had been the right way up.
After the event, i spoke at length to the midwife who was delivering me at the time. (She was a wonderful lovely person)and although she terrified me by explaining about the neurological complications associated with delivering a breech baby vaginally.
Obviously i was glad that they took the decision to do what was best for my baby.(and me, i was pre eclamptic)
I, like you wish that i had read up more and informed myself on such comlications of birth. I just never went down that route as i assumed that every thing would be ok.
I will be forever grateful for my fantasic midwife and her expertise before, during and after the birth of DS.
Good luck and i hope that your little one turns ready for meeting you!

Hi

My DS is now 6 weeks old and was breech from at least 30 weeks until I asked for him to be turned at 38 weeks. They didn't offer to turn him, they wanted me to have a c-section (they wouldn't contemplate a vaginal delivery - but I don't think I would have had one anyway even if they suggested this).

The ECV was definitely the best thing for me, went on to have a normal very straight forward and quick delivery, no stitches etc. Fab. Home in 6 hours toi be with DD (2 years) and new baby. Unlike if I had had to have a c-section.

Sorry to hear of your difficult birth, Donbean.

Was this your first baby?

With the mention of pre-eclampsia, I'm wondering if you were induced? One of the big things to watch out for with an induction is that the baby is in a perfect position for birth, otherwise you often get complications. You can't really disregard the value of those last few days and weeks of pregnancy and the Braxton Hicks contractions to line the baby up into an optimum position. Obviously, with pre-eclampsia, you had your health to worry about and it was in no way a "social" induction.

There isn't really anything "abnormal" about a frank breech - as Mary Cronk says, it's a variation on normal. The problem is is that you don't always know what kind of breech you have, and it's a big no-no to force out, by induction and acceleration, a footling or full (cross-legged) breech, because they don't usually fit through the birth canal (at least, safely). The last thing you want to do is force it against the mum's pelvis when it's got nowhere to go.

With a frank breech, the size of the baby's hips is about the same as its unmoulded head, so the chances of a good passage through the pelvis are the same as if the same baby were in a cephalic position.

I didn't have any problems with my frank breech. It was my fifth baby, so this may have made a difference. She came out in one contraction. The main difference in the labour is I had lots of extremely strong braxton-hicks in the days before - which I put down to getting the baby in the right position. In the labour itself, the ctx stayed fairly constant at about 3 mins apart (getting stronger in length and intensity, so we knew labour was progressing) - and they didn't overwhelm me. Consequently, it was a much longer labour - 6 hours instead of about 1-2 hours that I told my midwife to expect.

The only baby complication was a dislocated hip - which resolved itself within a couple of weeks. I don't think the birth itself made a difference to this - it was her sitting in the pelvis for several weeks that did it.

I'm finding all these stories fascinating!
Donbean, sorry about your story but sounds like the midwifes attitude makes it a bit better+

Mum2Ela, wa it very painful when they turned the baby??

I think my first option would be IF i could get qualified staff and IF it was a frank breech, to deliver naturally.
I have a fear of needles in my spine and also have gorgeous 3 year old dd and a ceaserean seems like a long recovery time to me!
I would not like at all to be induced-cut and forceps so my second option would be a ceaserean or to try and turn the baby. (Does that carry many risks in itself??)
I will look up all the recommended websites.
Thanks all++++++++++++++

From what I read when pregnant the main risk of turning is wrapping the cord around the baby's neck.

I had an ECV at 37 weeks, and would definitely recommend it. My hospital said it was the first choice of action for a baby that didn't look as if it would turn, and like Mum2ela I went on to have a completely normal delivery.

The actual ECV was uncomfortable, but not agony. It has to be done on Labour ward in case of the placenta coming away (in which case you'd be rushed of for an emergency section). I asked how often that happened -- the doctor said they do a couple of ECVs a week, and the last emergency C-section had been five years ago! I thought those odds were pretty good. But it would be worth finding out how experienced your particular unit is at doing this procedure.

It's now done after lots of ultrasound checks to see the position of the baby, the cord, the placenta and to check the fluid. So they're not operating in the dark. At my hospital you're put onto a drip to relax the uterine muscles, which was not terribly pleasant but really that was the worst part. The actual turning took about 2 minutes just as I was starting to squeak with discomfort, it was all over.

I would undoubtedly do it again under the same circumstances. The odds for success are also much higher if it's not your first baby. As I said in my earlier post, if the baby hadn't turned, I would have gone for a natural delivery with an experienced midwife, which probably would have meant getting an independent midwife to come in with me.

hth

Reading my post back it sounds like im moaning and complaining and it wasnt like that really.
The pre eclampsia was looming from about 28 weeks and was full blown by 34 weeks with several hospital admissions and me feeling a fraud and very bored. In the end with the hullucinations and a general feeling of impending doom (i knew that something definitely wasnt right) i was indeed induced as the labetalol did nothing to reduce my hypertension.
I think that to be fair as he was so very small 5lbs 4oz and very boney it was very difficult to tell that he was a breech presentation. Presumably his bottom felt as boney as a head does.
My community midwife has been such for 20 years and did not suspect breech positioning so i definitely feel that he simply out foxed the experienced experts. With no ill feeling towards her at all, i valued her input 100% and listened intently to her advice.
I have no recolection of the birth at all, however i remember the run up to bieng weeled into theatre before the anasthetic. I felt safe, well managed and that the staff were capable and new exsactly what they were doing at every juncture.
I have never stopped to think of how i would have felt had it all gone wrong as it didnt.
he was my first baby and we hope to go on to have another in the future, i am not put off in the slightest.
My midwife reassured me that there was no reason for a repeat performance as pre eclampsia tends to be a disease of first pregnancies.
I have gone on a bit now, i just feel that people are very quick to critisize and that it is important to me to actually contribute something positive on the subject.

I dont mean people are critisizing on this thread, i mean in general IYKWIM.x

You are absolutely not moaning DB. DS was an undiagnosed breech during 30 hours of labor! They kept saying his head felt "squishy" and at the time I thought "That doesn't sound right" but no one figured it out until I had dilated to 7 cm.