Having a breech baby can be stressful, but there are lots that can be done to encourage your little one to flip head-down!
Hi mamas. I’m Dr. Olivia and I am a chiropractor at Oona. I’m Dr. Olivia, as well, and I’m the naturopathic doctor at Oona.
Today we’re going to go through our breach protocol and what we typically do for our mamas when their babies aren’t in a great, optimal position for birth. We work together, we both work in Toronto and Newmarket. We collaborate a lot on making sure that our moms are in the best possible shape for birth, as well as, making sure that the fetal positioning is optimal. Typically by the mid to end of your third trimester we become concerned um as to where the baby is positioned.
Is the baby head down?
If they are head down, are they facing forward or are they facing backward?
Is the baby transverse, is the baby breech?
So a lot of our work is centered around that and just making sure that we can give mom the best possible outcome for a great birth. We’re going to go through what each of us does and what our treatments will typically consist of.
As a chiropractor, I work a lot on aligning the pelvis and making sure that the pelvis is in a great position and is very symmetrical. We use a very specialized technique called the Webster technique and that allows us to adjust the pelvis. To make sure that a mama is feeling the best that she can throughout her entire pregnancy. That the baby is in a really good position, as much room as possible, within the uterus and within the pelvis. That gives mom a better birth. Additionally, we work on the soft tissues that surround the pelvis, as well as, the ligaments that attach to the pelvis. In other words the intrauterine ligaments, the round ligaments, the broad ligaments. That just feels usually like a big belly massage and that just helps to make sure that those ligaments are in the best possible shape and that they’re not tugging at certain parts of the pelvis that could potentially make for an inoptimal fetal position.
Typically my treatments are more condensed so I see moms twice a week for three weeks and that’s a total of six adjustments within those three weeks. Typically we like to do these adjustments, or these treatments, before the 37 or 38-week mark. Because typically moms will try and attempt something called an ECV. That’s when the doctor, or the ob, or your midwife will try and externally rotate the baby. We like to try these more conservative measures a little bit before that.
To complement the therapies that you’re going to receive from Dr. Olivia in the chiropractic space, as a naturopathic doctor I’m able to offer two energetic type therapies that can also help with turning your baby from a breach position.
The first one is using traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture. The second is using homeopathic medicine. With Chinese medicine and acupuncture, we’re going to use monk Sebastian which requires burning a cigar-like preparation of mugworts. It’s an herb and the stick looks like this. We burn this at the outer corner of the pinky toe, we do that because there is a specific acupuncture point in your pinky toe that is kind of associated with the uterus. It shares the same spinal innervation and so by stimulating that point it has a reflexive stimulation on the uterus. Which can help to promote the fetal somersault or trying to try to get the baby to turn.
The second therapy that we use is homeopathy and the remedy is pulsatilla. It has a very changeable energetic quality, to it which helps the uterus with lengthening and the muscle fibers to stretch which opens up more space for the baby to turn, as well.
I generally would like to see mamas between 32 and 34 weeks, so if you find out that your baby’s breach at 27 weeks you can hold off for a few weeks. By 32-33 weeks, we definitely want to see you start the moxibustion and the homeopathy. You’ll perform this therapy at home after you’re given instruction in the clinic. You’ll perform the therapy for about 10 days and usually, two-thirds of my patients will have success with it. So within the first 10 days, it’s really something that you should consider adding to your treatment plan or as an option for you to naturally turn your baby. The ECV’s are quite invasive and so these are some really gentle, very effective treatments that can help get your baby into the best position for birth.
Okay, awesome, well we hope to see you at Oona. If you have any questions you can always email us or check us out on Instagram but we look forward to seeing you mamas.
Bye
