"The doctor on call is not confident in breech deliveries”
I wish I read this story before I scheduled a C-section
THINGS I WOULD LIKE EVERY WOMAN TO KNOW:
It is NOT against the law to drive barefoot
It is NOT against the law to turn down a C-section
Just stop picking at it.
I recently read a blog post that I REALLLLLY wish I had I come across while I was pregnant. It’s a straight forward run down of the reasons why hospitals don’t want to allow vaginal breech births. In essence, a breech birth is not an emergency but can require skill (a doff my cap to our freebirth girlies who are down birth their babies upside down or sideways). American doctors no longer have this skill. Midwives are systematically being de-skilled. This short essay includes a tidy summary of various studies and reports that create the scaffolding which the medical establishment anchor the belief that, for a breech baby, “a planned caesarean section is better than planned vaginal birth.”
It turned out around 34 weeks into my first pregnancy that my baby was breech & I had (diet controlled) Gestational Diabetes. Well it turns out I was “borderline” with GD a mere 0.1 point over the target – this meant I was labelled “high risk”. We saw an obstetrician around 35 weeks, I begged him to let me be on Midwife Led Unit (MLU) but his concern was that my baby was breech (my concern was wanting a vaginal birth).
Breech presentation is when your baby is not head down (cephalic – sometimes abbreviated to ceph) where they tend to be bum down (frank breech) and there’s also feet first (footling breech).
I was like “don’t worry I trust this baby will turn” deep inside I believed this, I used to talk to my bump and ask nicely for them to turn. Spoiler alert, it didn’t.
Great read; thanks for sharing. We just got a new OB in our small town who is trained in and comfortable with breech delivery and I'm psyched!!
I recently read someone say that being labeled high risk as a pregnant woman has more to do with the provider’s comfort level than anything else! Hopefully the tides turn and more providers become less scared of breech births!