My baby is breech. What can I do? Amy Mager MS, Lic.Ac., FABORM
If you find your baby is breech – don’t panic – breathe – in through your nose and out through your mouth – notice what happens in your body when you do that: you slow down, you relax. A friend who is a homebirth midwife has her clients turn all the pictures in the house upside down, so they are head down. Why? To get the picture in your visual cortex and nerve system of baby being head down and that being the frame you use to visualize your baby. It will make you giggle, this is also a good thing – laughter heals and shifts energy.
Print out or draw pictures of babies in the head down position and put them up around your house. The most important ones will go on your bathroom mirror, on your fridge,and by the door you go out to leave the house so you will see these images and it will plant seeds of cellular memory.
If you are able, go swimming – swimming changes the way your baby experiences weight and the way your body does. If you are up for it, do headstands upside down for a few seconds in the water – the water will support you and your flipping over will encourage baby to.
Talk to your baby about moving – about turning as long as it’s safe to do so and diving head down. Remind your baby why in your own words, it will make the birth easier, that you will recover more quickly from the birth, remind the baby that this is the first of many times that you will work together to problem solve. You are a team – even though your precious one is yet to be born, your baby understands everything but highly technical language. Your baby wants to work with you and will when you ask.
Moxa treatments will help turn the baby. Do be very clear via ultrasound or your midwife or OB that your baby is breech before you do moxa treatment – moxa turns babies. It does not turn them just head down. Acupuncture will work with the moxa treatment to create the space for your baby to turn if it’s safe. In my experience is also helps babies turn more easily if an external version is necessary. If you feel big change, big movement, kicks in a different place than you felt before, stop the moxa treatments, get that baby palpated by your OB or midwife and if that baby is head down, squat – you want to encourage your baby to engage in your pelvis if he’s turned once and is now head down. Also, thank her for her efforts and remind her how helpful she was in making this happen.