Ideas To Help Turn A Breech Baby

When I went in for our 20 week appointment I was mainly thinking about whether it would be a boy or a girl. The thought that our baby would be breech never even entered my mind so it came as a surprise when the doctor said he was breech, but my doctor was very calm and reassuring about the whole thing {which helped keep me calm} and simply said, "We'll just continue to watch it and if by 32 weeks he hasn't turned then we'll try some special exercises to help."

Well, at 32 weeks we check again and he was still breech. I'd already been doing the exercises sporadically for a couple of weeks but would now have to pick up the slack. My mom {who is an avid naturalist} also had a few suggestions for me that I continued to follow over the next few weeks.

Finally, at our 37 week check up, he had finally turned! YAY! I can't say for sure it was the exercises or anything else I did or if he was just ready to turn {it's very common for most breech babies to turn close to or right before birth}, but I do know that I would have regretted not even trying them.  

 Now, I will say that there are no proven ways to turn a breech baby and if your baby is really stubborn and decides it does not want to switch positions then you're honestly out of luck. However, there are a couple of things you can do to help your little decide if they want to move. Also, as a last resort you can have the doctor try to manually move the baby as well. If you end up going that way please be sure that your doctor has been trained in the procedure as the umbilical cord can get caught around their neck.

Ideas to help turn a breech baby:

1. Tummy Time: This is what I liked to call it at least because for this position you get down on all fours, stick your butt in the air, move your chest to the ground, and rest your head on the floor. This opens up the space around your stomach to help encourage the baby to move into the right position. You need to hold this position for 10-15 minutes, twice a day. 

2. Drink Lots of Water: Drinking lots of water helps replace any fluids you may have lost during the day. This increases the amniotic fluid around the baby giving them more room to move.

There are a lot of other ideas out there on how to turn a breech baby but to be honest none of them were recommended by my doctor. He told me to stick with these two and that they were my best bet. In fact when my husband and I brought up some of the other ideas we'd read online my doctor just laughed at us :-)

But I do I have one last suggestion that is just from me:

3. Stay Stress Free: No one's life is completely stress free but do whatever you can to reduce the stress in your life and don't worry about your baby being breech. He/she will turn whenever they are ready and if for some reason they don't, well, having a c-section is not the end of the world. Your life and your baby's life will move on. Don't stress. Breathe. And enjoy your pregnancy!