Preparing for a head down, anterior facing baby!

[carolyngrace]

One of the most interesting parts of my birthing class last week was learning more about how to prepare your body so that baby is appropriately positioned for birth. The Doula teaching the class had two posterior babies, and it's been kind of her "mission" to find out more about why and teach others. 

She recommended the website spinningbabies.com (which I've heard women on here and TB mention before and never looked at). I'm going to download one of their daily stretching videos. Lots of the stretches are things I could do without the video, but I like having the guidance. 

Anyway, I'm curious if anyone else has thoughts/tips about this. And if anyone has had a breech or posterior baby they have been able to spin/flip before their birth! 

[billyhorrible]

Mine was posterior right before/during labor, but "they" just flipped him by having me lie on my side with my top knee across my body (like a hip stretch)

[carolyngrace]

Mar 2, 2015 11:01:11 GMT -5 billyhorrible said:

Mine was posterior right before/during labor, but "they" just flipped him by having me lie on my side with my top knee across my body (like a hip stretch)

Interesting! I know someone else who was posterior and the baby turned just by going from laying on her back to hands and knees. It spun while she flipped over, and practically came right out after that. 

[herbavein]

IIRC, babies will sometimes flip from posterior to anterior during their trip down the birth canal (doesn't that sound romantic...), so it's definitely good to have someone in the room who can suggest positions to help!

[lunalovegood]

All four of mine have been born posterior position. Stubborn, stubborn children. That being said, I don't think any of my doctors have tried to flip them. I will be checking out that website, thanks for the info!

[noeliav]

This guy is head's up, I'm pretty sure, so if he doesn't flip by our 28w appointment, I'm going to ask our team about some preemptive exercises we can do before 32/34w to encourage him to be head down. I was reading spinningbabies last night and that seems like an appropriate approach at this time.

Posterior/anterior, I believe most babies rotate in labor, so I'm not worried too much there.

Worse case scenario for breech (I think, for us) is that our team does an ECV at some point. They have a really great success rate with that. But, clearly, there are quite a few steps before we get there.

[Widget123]

I think its way too soon to get too excited about this yet, but I agree it is interesting. I am familiar with spinning babies, etc. but I never needed it with DD.

[brennaz]

I'm pretty sure DS was born sideways...but TBH no one ever mentioned a difference between which way he was facing other than "head down." I just remember the way his shoulders came out, top/bottom rather than side/side.

[ktbear]

I was too far along in my last pregnancy when I found spinning babies to do any of the stretches. I really liked the "mapping" that the site teaches to find out if baby is breach or head down. I didn't have any U/S past my anatomy scan and had no idea his positioning without the mapping!

ETA- what I mean is that baby was already head down so it was too late to do stretches to "flip" him. I still did some of them just for funsies, but wasn't at all consistent.

[honeybunches101]

I will definitely be doing some of those exercises this time around! DS was posterior the whole second half of my pregnancy but my doctor wasn't worried because most babies flip during labor. He didn't and it was very difficult for me to push him out. Baby girl is head down but has been spinning around in there so we'll see where she ends up. I spend a lot of time sitting in the 'bad' position so I need to stop that!

[Bluedaisy]

I've heard great things about acupuncture for helping to get baby into the right position. I will definitely be trying that if my baby doesn't put his head down.

[Deleted]

Acupuncture can help too. I'll starting weekly sessions again at about 34 weeks.

[carolyngrace]

Mar 2, 2015 14:39:54 GMT -5 honeybunches101 said:

I will definitely be doing some of those exercises this time around! DS was posterior the whole second half of my pregnancy but my doctor wasn't worried because most babies flip during labor. He didn't and it was very difficult for me to push him out. Baby girl is head down but has been spinning around in there so we'll see where she ends up. I spend a lot of time sitting in the 'bad' position so I need to stop that!

I'm ALWAYS sitting in the bad position. Today I kept reminding myself to sit up straight and uncross my legs. But now that I'm home at night I just want to recline in bed for like 10 hours  

[RedAero]

Mar 2, 2015 11:01:11 GMT -5 billyhorrible said:

Mine was posterior right before/during labor, but "they" just flipped him by having me lie on my side with my top knee across my body (like a hip stretch)

(Lurking from August '15.)

This. I can't remember if DD was in ROP or LOP (I'd have to pull my records and look -- I have copies! they're neat to read! 'cause I'm a nerd like that) while I was laboring with her. The midwife had me try a similar move while I was about 8cm. Not gonna lie, that was a painful 10 or 15 minutes, but it apparently did the job! I was ready to push shortly after that.