When Melbourne mum Natalie Alessio discovered she had a breech baby at 32 weeks, she began using a technique called Spinning Babies to avoid a caesarean.
Natalie says it meant she could still be hopeful for a home birth which she was booked in for at her local hospital but feared she would be taken off the program if the baby didn’t turn before 37 weeks.
With the clock ticking, her doula told her about Spinning Babies and guided her through a series of positions aimed at turning her baby around.
“I was determined to try everything, and I was lucky he did turn in time. I was under the pump because I hadn’t been cleared for a home birth,” Natalie tells Mamamia.
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She began doing inversions a couple of times a day, resting on her forearms with her legs up on the couch.
“Everyone would laugh at me and my partner would ask what the hell I was doing. He was laughing at me too.
“There is quite a science to it, to keep your back straight to maximise the inversion.”
With the clock still ticking, Natalie began to up the ante and introduced a few other techniques, practising them three to five a day.
At 36 weeks, Natalie’s baby boy, Kai, turned.
“The midwives didn’t believe it until they felt him,” she said.
Natalie continued to practice the forward leaning inversion method right up until labour to ensure her baby remained in the right position.
“It is a more natural form of helping to move the baby. It shows you can do it yourself and it is not invasive.”
Creator of the specialised technique US midwife, Gail Tully, said it so successful at turning babies that she often hears stories of babies born outside operating theatres.
Spinning Babies was developed to address foetal position and overall comfort during pregnancy and labour and overcome obstructions in labour causing it to stall by using specific stretches and gentle jiggles that work on the fascia.
“Every day I hear women from around the world tell me their back pain has eased, their caesareans were cancelled outside the operating room, transverse babies suddenly turn head down and first-time labours that last less than eight hours," Gail tells Mamamia.
“Too often it is said baby is too big for pelvis, but it is the angle of the head not size of pelvis.
"We need to get the circulation of the tissues more mobile which we can do through these stretch and jiggle techniques."
Gail says the baby is an active member in birth and by activating the body’s anatomy in ways never done before it allows it to be optimally positioned and create more room in the uterus.
Gail said Spinning Babies starts by determining where the baby is positioned and then uses natural solutions to release tight ligaments causing pain during pregnancy or birth.
She says often habits in our lives can cause our uterus to become twisted and with an inversion for no more than 30 seconds a day the uterus can untwist and often within 24 hours the baby will go head down.
Has your breech baby turned around? Tell us about your experience in the comments section below.
To find out more about Spinning Babies, you can visit Gail's website.
The views, information, or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of Mamamia. For further information on breech babies please consult a health care professional.
Top Comments
Babies often turn on their own, sometimes even during labour. It is not a given that if your baby is breech at any time they will remain that way, unless there are other factors hindering the turn, such as a short umbilical cord or bicornuate uterus etc.
I did a lot of research before giving birth to my breech baby. There was no explanation as to why she was breech but I "fought" to have a natural vaginal birth in a tertiary hospital. It was "granted" but I had to agree to having consultants on call for when I went into labour (though this was not even done as my labour was so quick). It was my most easiest labour ever out of all 4 of my labours.
Women assume if a baby is breech they have no alternatives. And I get it. A lot of doctors would rather a straight forward vaginal birth than worry about complications. I was told by a consultant that I was stupid for wanting a breech birth and that if she had her way she would manipulate the baby out rather than allow me to birth standing, knowing that gravity assists. Needless to say, I birthed my breech baby as I wanted. I knew I had a shorter time to birth her head after her body as her umbilical cord is squished against my pelvic bones. It's easy to know what needs to be done, but women need to learn to educate themselves so they know what to expect instead of crying poor if something happens because they made a bad decision and didn't understand the risks.
I'm all for vaginal breech birth in women who are educated. it's important to know that if your baby is breech there is also a risk of hip dysplasia (especially in frank breech babies) so always make sure you research if your baby is in breech position for some time.
The best thing about breech babies is the flat head they have, instead of the elongation that can sometimes occur from head first babies. <3
What would be a much better idea would be if doctors and midwives had way way better education in delivering breech babies so that it's no longer considered an emergency.
Despite the Term Breech trial having been thoroughly debunked, there are still many doctors and hospitals that consider breech babies to be an absolute indication of need for a caesarean.
Breech is a variation of normal and should be treated as such. Just like a posterior baby is a variation of normal. Birth providers need to get a LOT better at dealing with the 5% of women who carry breech babies, rather than just assuming they'll all have to have caesers.
Wait, are you saying the medical information I got from Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves isn't necessarily accurate??
Morgan Freeman lied to me!!
Mind, the first few lines of this article are misleading:
"When Melbourne mum Natalie Alessio discovered she had a breech baby at 32 weeks, she began using a technique called Spinning Babies to avoid a caesarean.
Natalie says it meant she could still be hopeful for a home birth which she was booked in for at her local hospital but feared she would be taken off the program if the baby didn’t turn before 37 weeks."
Second paragraph says she wanted to avoid being taken off the home birth program. First paragraph assumes the only alternative to home birth would be a caesar, when in fact breech vaginal births (in hospital) are obviously a possibility (and far more likely to occur in hospital than at home).
As for the call for more birth providers to become more adept and practiced with potentially more complicated vaginal deliveries: you're probably not likely to see that from happening until rates of litigation go down. Doctors are moving away from high-risk births for a good reason.
That scene has flummoxed me for years! There are SO MANY problems with it. For example:
- Is the baby breech or just posterior (or otherwise malpositioned). Morgan just says, 'You baby has not turned.' How the hell does he know what a baby in utero feels like?! How many pregnant women has he been feeling up?!
- Fanny isn't the only woman there in the village, there would have been shit tons of women around who had had a baby before and would be well versed with malpositioned babies.
- Midwives were around back then as well, she would have had one. And if not, most women were quasi midwives at that time and helped one another during labour
- Wtf did Morgan Freeman even DO?! You can't force a baby to turn like that, it's not even remotely possible. Are they suggesting he stuck his whole arm up there and just pulled the baby out?!
- Why the hell were Robin and Marion even in the room?! What help dd they give?! Marion gave her a stick to bite down on and Robin, what, stood there? The chances of a man completely unrelated to a woman, and an actual stranger (Marion) being allowed in that room are slim to none. I mean, they kicked Little John out but let Robin and Marion in, what?!
- Why was she on her back?! There is absolutely no way in HELL a woman in that time would have been labouring on her back in bed unless she literally had no legs
- What exactly did Morgan Freeman do with the needle and thread he asked for? Surely they're not suggesting he sewed up her perineum after he stuck his whole arm up there!
As you can see, I, uh, have strong feelings about this scene!
The problem with not having anyone with breech birth skills is that when breech births do happen quickly, and they can, like all births, you have a bunch of people standing around not knowing what to do.
Misdiagnosis of breech is also common. A provider believes a baby is breech and they perform a caesarean section, only to find that the baby is head down and they've just performed unnecessary surgery on a woman.
The opposite happens as well, a baby is thought to be head down and is actually breech. If you then find yourself in a situation where the baby's birth is imminent and you discover the baby to not be head first, then having the skills to manage that is vital.
The loss of breech skills is absolutely putting women and babies at risk.