Moving a breach baby manually

[morzinne]

Has anyone had experience of having their breach baby moved manually at 37 weeks or later? Have just discovered I am breach and am due to meet consultant this Tuesday to possible try manual moving but am not 100% I want to do this.

DS4 was breech @ 37 wks & I had him moved manually. It wasn't v comfortable, but it worked! I was in the antenatal unit for a couple of hours for monitoring & then went home. DS4 stayed in the correct position & was born without any further intervention.

HTH - good luck!

Z x

My friend had this done, she was scanned before and they monitor the baby's heartbeat whilst in progress. 37 weeks is quite late to do this I thought? (someone else correct me please if wrong)

If you really don't want it done then tell them.

I had an ECV at 39+5 with my first baby so it was more than likely to fail - which it did. At 37 weeks and if this is not your baby you are much more likely to have success. They managed to get DS diagonal but he would not budge any further and it was very painful TBH. But I know this is not typical and you may find many people say that it just felt uncomfortable. I'm really glad I tried to give myself the chance of a normal birth.

My advice would be to find out the success rate of the particular person who is doing the ECV (as it's quite a technique to master, and you'll want the best person rather than just the one that's available). Also do check out the other ways of encouraging babies to turn - www.spinningbabies.com is great for ideas. Other advice would be to have your hospital bag completely packed and left in the car when you go for the ECV. My waters broke 8 hours after the unsuccessful ECV and I know that if your DC is in trouble (they monitor the heartbeat) they may take you to have a c-section on the same day.
Good luck though, you still have time for the baby to turn and it's not the end of the world to have a c-section!

I think 37 weeks is the earliest they can do it, allstarprincess, as they may do a c-section if the baby is in trouble, and they wouldn't want to do that for a healthy infant before 37 weeks.

Maybe that is where my number came from! You learn something new every day.

Thanks.

My sister refused this and was glad she did because when she had the c section they found the baby's cord was quite short... No idea what damage they could have done if they had tried to turn her manually! As it is, they tend to stand by with the knife, which I don't find reassuring. Mine's just turned by itself (36wks) but I was already planning an elective c section (much safer than an emergency one) if she'd stayed breech.

With ds1 i had ECV at 39+2. hed turned transverse, then breech. They did do it successfully but I did have an extreme amount of fluid inside(looked like i was having twins!)which i think made it alot easier for them. He stayed in the correct position and was born normally at 40+11

It wasnt that uncomfortable, although the woman who did it had really long nails, which wasnt that pleasant.

hth

Is it an old wives tale that you feel sick when the baby turns? Heard this from a few mums at work...my baby was breech at 33 weeks last week and I've had a v unwelcome bout of random nausea and puking today