A Personal Experience With a Breech Baby
By Emily Johnston
By 36 weeks gestation, most babies will be head down and preparing for traveling out the vaginal canal. When an expecting mother gets the news her baby is breech, the googling and educational onslaught begins. With so few OBs trained and/or willing to deliver breech, the default for a baby in breech presentation is a c-section.
Despite my training and clinical success with helping mothers flip their babies, when I got the news that my baby was breech, I still panicked. So began the hours of work and appointments to help turn the baby.
For about a month, to help flip the baby, I used:
Moxa every day
Acupuncture 1x/week
Pilates 1x/week
Spinning babies (inversions every day)
Chiropractic Care (gentle/soft muscle tissue approach) & Massage (to reduce musculoskeletal pressure/restrictions to allow baby to move) 1-3x/week
Pelvic Floor Therapy 1x/month
We are lucky to live in an era where we have options for integrative care that have been studied, but I am very eager to have these options studied in more depth so doctors can disseminate the information, rather than patients needing to do their own research and/or try everything. In some ways, what I did was insane in our modern world. Who has time for all this?!
So if you already have appointment fatigue and are wanting to know the best thing to try, the most robust research for flipping babies seems to point to Acupuncture, Moxibustion and inversions. Even though we have so much more to learn, it is exciting that based off this knowledge, Acupuncture is widely recommended by OBs!
While most manual techniques vary between practitioners, all Acupuncturists use a specific point (Bladder 67) found on the lateral aspect of the pinky toe nail bed. Our clinic also follows the work of Debra Betts, an Acupuncturist and researcher, who is big into patient education. Thus we teach patients how to use the moxa sticks, various pertinent stretches, and other acupuncture points thought to influence the baby and relax the mother’s body, thereby creating room for the baby to flip. On that note, we also value hands-on techniques such as tuina and trigger point acupressure to help loosen tight muscles to create more room and have the baby be gently guided head down.
I am so thankful to have had so many lovely practitioners’ help, the resources to take advantage of these modalities and the childcare to get to these appointments. Fortunately, my baby flipped and I feel so lucky for that. As we jump into this new year, my personal experience has made me eager to know more about Acupuncture’s efficacy, and in particular flipping breech babies. Anyone want to fund a study for us? HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Moxa & Acupuncture: Sarsmaz K, Kulah BB, Orgul G, Tonyalı NV, Yucel A, Tekin OM. Effectiveness of Moxibustion for Breech Presentation: A Prospective Study. Z Geburtshilfe Neonatol. 2022 Apr;226(2):112-120. doi: 10.1055/a-1579-1436. Epub 2021 Sep 15. PMID: 34528235.
Neri I, Airola G, Contu G, Allais G, Facchinetti F, Benedetto C. Acupuncture plus moxibustion to resolve breech presentation: a randomized controlled study. J Matern Fetal Neonatal Med. 2004 Apr;15(4):247-52. doi: 10.1080/14767050410001668644. PMID: 15280133.
Pilates: Ghandali NY, Iravani M, Habibi A, Cheraghian B. The effectiveness of a Pilates exercise program during pregnancy on childbirth outcomes: a randomised controlled clinical trial. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2021 Jul 2;21(1):480. doi: 10.1186/s12884-021-03922-2. PMID: 34215198; PMCID: PMC8253242.
Spinning Babies: https://www.spinningbabies.com/pregnancy-birth/baby-position/breech/flip-a-breech/