I remember walking into my 35 week midwife appointment feeling excited to talk about my baby girl and listen to her heart beat. Then, walking out feeling scared and totally stressed out. Yep, Diana was breech. That means her butt was facing down instead of her head. Now don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t really scared of giving birth to a breech baby at home. I’ve read plenty about it and watched videos and I knew my midwife had experience delivering breech. Heck, I even knew other women that have had breech babies at home! My fear was about if I did have to transfer to the hospital for some reason, then my only option to deliver Diana would be c-section.
So needless to say, I got right to work! First, I stayed up all night re-reading Spinning Babies and forming a plan. I got ready to spend some time on my head, literally! There were 3 main inversions I would do. The forward-leaning, the breech tilt and I also taught myself how to do a head stand, which looked pretty hilarious with my 35 week pregnant belly! Let me break it down for you.
I would do these sets 3 times a day, morning, noon and night.
First the forward-leaning inversion. I would do 3 sets in a row of being down for 2 minuets and up for 2 minutes. This one was pretty easy for me, so I always started out with this one first.
Next the breech tilt. I worked myself up to holding the position for 20 minutes. This was the one I really hated! It killed my tailbone and was super unconformable! But I remember laying on that board and listening to some of my favorite classical music on my phone. I put my phone on the lower part of my abdomen to encourage Diana move toward the music. I took deep breaths and tried to relax as much as possible. Sorry guys, I hated it so much I never took a picture but check out this link to see how it's done! Breech Tilt
Lastly the head stand. I would hold this position for 40 seconds then come down and rest for 1 minute. I did 3 sets of these in a row. I had never done a head stand before in my life! But it’s pretty amazing what we can accomplish when we are motivated! And honestly it was a lot easier than I thought it would be!
I also made time to visit a chiropractor, which I had never done either but it did feel nice after.
After 4 days of this Diana decided to help her mom out and flip head down! I remember lying in bed getting ready to sleep, when I felt a BIG movement from baby girl! Wow, at that moment I knew she was head down! We scheduled an ultrasound for the next day and sure enough there she was head down and looking absolutely perfect!
As a doula, I’ve seen these techniques work on other women but I never imagined I would be using them on myself! I was filled with absolute relief and just so thankful that Diana wanted to come into this world head first instead of showing us all her tiny heinie!
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