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While many breech
babies spontaneously turn to head first, or vertex presentations,
you may want to encourage this by trying a combination of postural
exercises, visualizations and taped music or voices. Begin
at 32-35 weeks gestation. Have your partner or a friend
present at least the first few times to help you get in and out
of the position.
The Breech Tilt
Do 3 times daily for
10 - 15 minutes each time when you have an empty stomach.
Try to choose times when the baby is active. Concentrate
on your baby, avoid tensing your body, especially your abdomen,
in order to make the baby turn easier.
Raise hips 12"
or 30 cm off a firm surface, using large solid pillows.
Couch cushions are good.
Ironing Board Exercise
Prop one end of an
ironing board or slant board 12 to 18 inches high on the seat
of a chair or couch. Makes sure it is stable. Repeat
as often as with the breech tilt.
These two exercises
work on the same principle. By positioning your body so
your head is lower, gravity encourages the baby's head to "float"
toward your fundus, flex her chin onto her chest and start to
turn under. As pressure builds on the back of the back
of the baby's head, she gradually rotates first into transverse,
then all the way to vertex.
Visualization
Visualization is a
way to enlist your mental powers to help turn the baby. Combine
visualization with relaxation and the postural exercise.
It is important for you to relax your body while in the breech
tilt position, even though you may feel blood rushing to your
head and may bit feel 100% comfortable. If you are tense,
especially in your trunk, this may work against the baby's rotation.
A nicely relaxed abdominal wall gives the baby more room to turn.
It helps to have a quiet atmosphere for this exercise.
You can silently picture what you want to happen. Say to
yourself, or have your partner say the following or something
similar:
"As I lie here
in a tilt, I take long breathes and relax my body. Your
head presses toward my chest. The pressure of your head
makes you wiggle. Come on baby, come around. Move your
head, move your body to take the pressure off. Turn around,
tuck your chin and come toward my cervix. My cervix and
vagina are your opening to the world. Come close, so you
will be all ready to come out when the time is right and
Ill be ready to welcome you. Turn around...turn around.
I'm relaxing my body to give you more room to turn around, to
get ready to be born."
Using Your Voice
or Music
You or your partner
might also record this visualization, referring to the baby as
you, and play it to the baby through earphones placed on your
lower abdomen where you want the baby's head to go. Who
knows, he may go down there so he can hear you better!
Taped music may attract the baby in the same way. We know
babies hear. They know their parents voices , especially
their mothers. We also know they become active when they
hear music (vivldi, Bach, etc.) is better then Romantic
(Chopin, Debussy, late Beethoven, etc.) that rock music
is disturbing, that acoustic folk music and the new relaxation
music may be appealing.
Or your partner or
a friend might place himself or herself near your lower abdomen
and coax the baby to come down where its easier to hear you you.
Where is more comfortable. You may combine the tape and
live coaxing with the postural exercise or use it alone.
Good luck. Your
baby may very well turn with this treatment. It is worth
trying, since it seems to be harmless for a healthy pregnant
woman. (If you have high blood pressure, diabetes, a heart
condition or other medical problem you should probably not do
the postural exercises) and her fetus. The most likely harmful
effect is that it may not work, which means that you go on with
the next step, which might be an attempted version at 37 or 36
weeks by a doctor why is familiar with the technique or a breech
birth, either vaginally or by cesarean.
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