How I (Maybe) Flipped My Breech Baby

Disclaimer:  I have no medical training of any kind.  Do not do any of the following without consulting your care provider.  

Around 36 weeks gestation, we discovered that our baby was breech.  He had been head down for weeks, but I felt him move around the 35 week mark and was sure he had flipped.  We were devastated.  We had prepared for months for a natural birth, and wanted as little interventions as possible in hopes of avoiding a c-section.    I did everything in my power to turn him.  At almost 38 weeks, he finally flipped back to vertex (head down).

I have no idea if anything I did contributed to this.  I will never know.  But what I do know is that somewhere in the world at some point in time, an emotional, scared, frantic, heavily pregnant woman will Google “How do I flip my breech baby” at 4am, and hopefully she will find this post.

To you, crazy, panicked pregnant lady, I say, read on…and consider the following (under medical supervision):

1. External Cephalic Version (ECV).  This was the most involved of the things we tried, and carried the most risk.  An ECV is when your practitioner tries to manually turn the baby from the outside.  Our hospital had a 50/50 success rate, but I have heard of higher success rates elsewhere.  It’s painful, but manageable.  You can read about my failed version here.
2. Acupuncture.  If nothing else, acupuncture was incredibly relaxing during a stressful time (I actually fell asleep in one of the sessions).  It’s also said to help trigger the release of energy to help your body “move freely” and allow baby to move into position.  I got a referral from my midwife group for a practice that specialized in working with pregnant women.
3. Moxibustion.  I was willing to try anything that was low or no risk, no matter how silly.  Moxa is a mugwort that can be burned like an incense stick by various points of the body.  For a breech baby this point is near your pinky toe.  We burned moxa like crazy.  My pinky toes actually turned a yellowish orange color from it.  In addition to doing it at home, the acupuncturist also did it during our sessions.  Moxa comes in sticks, which you hold near the desired area, or in a stub-like piece that can be adhered to the body.  For home use I prefered the sticks.
4. Chiropractor.  I visited a chiropractor for the Webster technique.
5. Swimming.  Specifically hand stands in the water and lots of flips.
6. Light & Sound.  During my late-night internet readings I encountered the idea to draw baby’s head down by placing light and sound at the pubic bone.  It felt ridiculous (“Go to the light!”) but would always get him to move a lot.
7. Hot & Cold.  Similar to light and sound, the idea is to draw baby toward the warmth.  We used a hot water bottle and frozen peas.
8. Scrub the floors.  Ok, not literally.  But hands and knees position is ideal, so you may as well scrub the floors while you’re at it.  Also, I did a ton of pelvic tilts throughout the whole pregnancy.
9. Inversions/Breech Tilt.  Somehow an ironing board supported my pregnant body weight.  Check out this page from Spinningbabies.com for all the information you would ever want on this.
10. Acceptance.  Even though I desperately did not want to have a c-section, after a couple weeks of fighting it, I reached a place of reluctant acceptance.  Baby turned the next day.  Things have a way of working out.

There are some care providers in the US that will vaginally deliver a breech baby.  This was not an option for us, as we could not find a doctor willing to do it in the Seattle area and we were not comfortable with a breech home birth.  But I know there are many healthy babies born breech and it can be wonderful.  For us, the risks outweighed the advantages, so we would have proceeded with a cesarean if baby didn’t flip.  As with birth in general, it is a very personal decision.