Turning a Breech Baby

Before doing anything yourself to help the baby turn, you should try to learn how to determine whether or not the baby is breech by feeling your belly to locate the head. Ask your doctor or midwife to help you learn to do this if you don't already know how. Many women can teach themselves by simply pressing gently on the pregnant belly to feel the baby's outline and following the various body parts until there is a good picture of how the baby is lying, but it might be easier if someone else could show you. The reason it's important to be able to do this is so that you know when the baby has turned and don't accidentally "unturn" the baby through your efforts.

General Advice for Helping a Breech Turn

Some of these can be used together, thereby increasing their effectiveness.

·    Walk a lot. Creates movement in the pelvis, providing more room for baby to turn.

·    Soaking in water first will help relax everything, creating even more room.

·    Breech tilt.

·    If done 10 minutes twice a day for 2-3 weeks after the 30th week the pelvic tilt had an 88.7-96% success rate in research done with 744 women.

·    It is recommended that the this be done on an empty stomach, and that the pelvis be raised 9-12 inches above the head.

·    Gravity pushes the baby's head into the fundus, tucks it, and baby can then do a somersault to a vertex position.

·    Talk to the baby about turning. Partner can even speak close to mom, low down on her belly, to encourage baby to move towards the sound.

·    Visualization of the baby turning, while practicing deep relaxation.

·    You can imagine a helium balloon attached to the baby's foot, imagine the baby turning somersaults.

·    Nice things (music, whale sounds) played through headphones placed near the pubic bone, to encourage baby to move towards the sounds.

·    Place a bag of frozen peas or corn on the top of mom's belly. Most babies don't like this cold, and will move away from it.

·    Place a flashlight close to the vagina (babies gravitate toward the light).

·    Reportedly the most successful technique is going to a swimming pool and doing handstands.

·    Get into the pool and spend at least 15 minutes just paddling around and having fun. This will help you to relax those abdominal muscles to give the baby more room to turn, and the deep water immersion will increase your amniotic fluid, also helpful to the baby's turning.

·    Go to where you can stand with your head just above water, then do 5 handstands in a row.

·    Self-applied acupressure on pressure point Bladder 67, which is on the outside of the little toe on both feet, right next to the nail.

·    Increase the volume of your amniotic fluid to make sure there is enough fluid for the baby to move around in.

·    Drinking plenty of water - about a gallon a day - will help.

·    Frequently immersing yourself in water, like in the bath or swimming pool, also helps.

Turning a Breech with Homeopathics

Call Maureen at 408-629-6861 for stores that carry Pulsatilla.

·    Pulsatilla 200c 1xday; repeat one more day if baby hasn't turned yet

·    or Pulsatilla 30C (homeopathic; dosage 3-5 pellets under the tongue twice daily until baby turns) which encourages position change.

·    or Try using homeopathic Pulsatilla 6X, one tablet under the tongue four times a day. Combine this with the breech tilt exercise at least twice a day for 10 minutes each time. Take one Pulsatilla tab before beginning the breech tilt.

Turning a Breech with Chiropractic Help

It is called the "Webster Technique." Many chiropractors are familiar and successful with this technique. The success rate is around 80-85%.

By 38 weeks, 97% of babies turn head down by themselves. The things mentioned here aren’t harmful, and may be helpful, but have not been scientifically proven.