First of all, don?t stress out. Just because your care provider thinks the baby is breech doesn?t mean you?ll automatically have to have a C-section, especially if you?re not yet 36 weeks along. Somewhere around the 34-weeks mark my midwife thought my son might be breech, and all of a sudden every midwife in the whole practice seemed to crowd into the exam room to chime in about acupuncture, yoga, confusing acronyms, and something I?d never heard of called moxibustion. I felt totally overwhelmed by all the many options they were suggesting. (Eventually, an ultrasound revealed that what the midwives thought was the baby?s head was actually his bony bum?phew. Crisis averted.)
It?s also important to know that the easiest technique for turning a breech baby is extremely low-effort: just give it time. Most babies do turn on their own before their due date. In fact, your chances of having a breech baby decrease with each passing week. While about 30 per cent of babies are breech at 30-32 weeks, only 3 per cent are still breech at term (37 weeks), says OB-GYN Ellen Giesbrecht, a doctor at BC Women?s Hospital in Vancouver. You may have also heard that yoga positions, swimming, belly dancing, spending time upside down, or doing exercises like pelvic tilts can help. ?Many of these are just about using the principle of gravity to get the baby?s bum up and out of the pelvis,? explains Giesbrecht.
Interestingly, the majority of babies will turn at night, when you?re sleeping, due to you...