Thursday, August 6, 2009

Who Knows How to Deliver a Breech?

"C-sections shouldn't be 'automatic' for breech births, Canadian doctors say"

Duh.

I can't believe that since the year 2000, every woman with a breech baby gets cut open. They thought it was safer. I am so glad that it's finally being concluded that it's not necessarily true.

But there are still 2 main problems.

First, and this is the smaller of the two, not everyone agrees with this yet. But, I think it will come soon.

The bigger problem lies with the short-sightedness of the medical community.

Nobody has regularly delivered breech babies naturally for so long, that nobody knows how. They don't get trained to do it. So, even those who might be willing have no skill. Some do, and have, but it's a small group. And depending where you live, there may be laws against it.

Here in Israel, it is illegal to have a breech delivery at home. So the midwives won't do it; they'd lose their licenses. And they haven't been trained for it, anyway. The only option for someone like me (if my baby doesn't turn) is to go to the hospital. At the hospital, they want to automatically cut me open, and not even try to deliver naturally. I can choose a hospital where they have more doctors who do deliver breeches, and refuse a C-section, and pray that they will not automatically cut.

But it's a crappy position to be in.

If I lived in many other places, especially in Europe, there would be midwives who would be happy and confident to help me birth this baby at home, as I'd like to.

For now, I'll keep going to the chiropractor and hanging upside down. And pray that she turns.

Here's the link to the article from Canada: http://bit.ly/6Cb3k

1 comment:

  1. I am thrilled that your little one has gotten with the program, but I want to let you know that I was one of the lucky women who had a Dr. who was at a hospital that was okay delivering a breech baby vaginally! My daughter was supposedly head down by exam two days earlier, but by the time I was in labor and at the hospital she had flipped. They confirmed that by ultrasound and in between my contractions I had the resident ask me "has your doctor mentioned to you that your baby is breech?"...say what?! I was devastated as I envisioned my natural birth plan fly out the window. They called my Dr. in and I was shocked that he was going to let me deliver vaginally because the baby was frank breech (the most favorable for breech vaginal deliveries). But he did have to warn me that I would need to deliver in the OR with an epidural just in case the baby got stuck and they needed to act fast to get it out. Those were concessions I could make to avoid a big slice in my midsection. There was quite the crowd in the OR to observe this rare delivery. Apparently the resident that assisted the Dr. also had previous experience with breech vaginal deliveries and all the other residents and Drs were seeing a rare but helpful thing. When I moved the one question that I asked when looking for an OB is "Would you deliver a breech baby vaginally?" After my previous experience, I didn't want to get a c-section if I had other babies that flipped last minute. I found a Dr that would, but my other babies (boys) all stayed head down (one posterior and one in a far more favorable position). It is true that girls like to do things their own way! Best of luck! Have a wonderful homebirth!

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