Well, it turns out we have quite an acrobat on our hands! Baby TTT has flipped so many times, it’s a little hard to believe.

At 30 weeks, we had an ultrasound and he was head up. I was a little concerned, but the perinatologist assured me that it wasn’t too late for him to flip, and that we wouldn’t be concerned until 34 weeks. To help things move in the right direction, I started doing lots of pelvic tilts and always tried to sit up straight so my spine was not curved. This is supposed to help so the baby won’t settle in a breech position.

At 34 weeks, I cried to my doctor because I was so worried that he would remain breech and I’d have to have a c-section, but when he felt around and listened to the heart beat, he said the baby was head down! Yay! I was able to figure out that he flipped the Saturday before that, when I was woken up in the middle of the night from his crazy movements that kept me up for several hours. I was relieved and stopped doing the pelvic tilts.

Then, two weeks later, my doctor discovered that he was head up… again. I was disappointed, but not as devastated as before because I had some time to get used to the idea that baby TTT might not cooperate and I might have to have a c-section.

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Finally, a week later at my most recent perinatologist appointment, he was head down! Unfortunately, my fluid levels are very low, so now I’m sort of on bed rest, but that’s a whole different story. Right when I got home, I started doing exercises on the birth ball to open my pelvis in hopes that I can get him locked down in there head first.

Throughout all of this, I’ve done some research on how to flip a breech baby and what to do if the flipping never happens. The best resource I’ve found for this is Spinning Babies. Here’s what they have to say about flipping:

  • Put yourself in the position you want your baby to be in — head down!
  • Share your plan with your caregiver before you begin.
  • When your womb is in balance, the baby is likely to flip head down by themself
  • If the baby is still breech at 37 weeks or later, it may be worth it to have a external cephalic version
  • When breech runs in the family, the mother’s thyroid is low-functioning, or the womb has a septum or unusual shape, these exercises may or may not work.
  • Talk to your baby, heart to heart, and tell your baby what you want – and ask your baby what she/he needs in this situation, too.
Some of the positions they suggest are a bit… much for me, so I stuck to pelvic tilts on all fours, especially after my doctor said he wouldn’t suggest the inverted positions. Check out this page for some of the techniques they suggest.
Many people swear by the Webster Technique, where a chiropractor does some adjustments that are supposed to help flip the baby, but after reading up on it a bit more, specifically this article, I decided it wasn’t for me. I think the part that made me the most wary of this treatment was this:
“Many chiropractors who use the Webster Technique identify themselves as “chiropractic pediatricians,” a title they are not qualified to claim. Most chiropractic students receive about 15 hours of classroom instruction in obstetrics and gynecology and 15 hours in pediatrics [1], certainly not enough training to warrant treating patients in these fields.”
I’m not willing to take a chance paying someone who might have had only 30 hours of training to do something that might not help, but could even harm me or the baby.
Then, I read this study, which seems to prove that if the baby is breech, but the mom is allowed to go into labor naturally, often the baby will flip at the last minute due to certain hormones released during this time. Here’s the part I liked best:
“Researchers compared outcomes for planned cesarean and planned vaginal birth for breech  babies among 8,105 women in France and Belgium.  Of those who planned a vaginal birth, 71% were successful and there was no significant  difference in outcomes between the vaginal birth and cesarean delivery groups.”
Now that baby TTT is head down and I’m 37 weeks, I’m really hoping he doesn’t have enough room to flip yet again. Also, with my low fluid levels, it seems like I might deliver earlier rather than later, so hopefully he can stay put until the time is right. If not, my doctor has already told me that I’m the boss and if I don’t want a scheduled c-section, I don’t have to have one (as long as the baby isn’t in harm’s way). He did say though, that a scheduled c-section can be much easier to handle than an emergency one, which is something I’ve considered. Luckily, I don’t have to make this decision now, but if I do, I’ll have to weigh the pros and cons very carefully before coming to a conclusion.Did you have a breech baby? Did any of the Spinning Babies techniques work for you?