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Breech babies

The issue of breech birth has come up again. A midwife colleague was off to counsel a woman who desperately wanted a vaginal breech birth, yet was being pressured by the hospital staff to accept an elective caesarean birth “in the interests of her baby”.

Many woman are falling foul of this current obsession with surgical births for breech babies, despite no hard evidence this will routinely give better outcomes, and their desire to avoid surgery. The famous “Term Breech Trial” by Hannah and others has been widely condemned as deeply flawed, since it only examined births managed by obstetricians and in hospital settings. I won’t go into it here, but for those interested this link offers a good appraisal of this research paper. Overnight, obstetricians started to enforce the surgical option on women with breech babies, changing practices that have since de-skilled both midwifery and obstetric clinicians in managing vaginal breech births.

Women with a breech baby, giving the current climate, are well advised to try and encourage the baby to turn itself into a vertex (head down) position during the last weeks of the pregnancy - then the issue of surgery will evaporate and a normal vaginal birth can be anticipated. External cephalic version is usually offered, but this is an invasive, often uncomfortable procedure, that should be performed (for safety) around 39 weeks of pregnancy. Unfortunately, many women are scheduled for their caesarean section by 38 weeks.

A better alternative is to use burning Moxa sticks to provide a heat treatment that stimulated fetal movements. The baby turns itself - much safer and more comfortable. This technique is “do-it-yourself”, easy and straightforward and has a higher success rate than external cephalic version. For full details, instructions and the research evidence that underpins the technique, this article explains all. If your baby is breech, print the article off, follow the ideas presented and try it out. If you can’t find the Moxa sticks locally, we have them available on mail order and can post them anywhere in the world. Click here for ordering details.

Posted by andrea at November 07, 2005 08:01 AM