What position is your baby in? « Back to Group Discussions

[kaliki_kila]

a la Spinning Babies.  http://www.spinningbabies.com/baby-positions/belly-mapping

And are you concerned about the position and doing anything to try and change it?

My little guy is ROT.

 I've been trying to get him to at least go over to the other side by sleeping only on my left side.

[Lilac11]

After a couple months of being constantly anterior (mostly left), he started moving around last week!  So he's been all over the place!  But currently today he is anterior (right).  He has not dropped / his head is not engaged so I know he can turn around some more until labor.

I've been trying to sit up straight (I miss lounging in my rocker tho!) and on the birth ball, and avoiding sleeping on my back!

[mamadiamond]

she has been ROT since at least the 20 week scan. once in a great while she'll flip to ROA or LOT, but always flips back to her comfy spot. probably because i sleep mostly on my right and carry dd mostly on my left hip. i also have some scoliosis which makes it really painful to lay on my left (like, if i spend half an hour on my left side i have trouble walking the entire day), so there's not much i can do to turn her around. dd was transverse/posterior during most of labor, but while it made things more painful it didn't really cause problems because i have a very large pelvis. i still only had 13 hours of active labor. thank god for the german birthing hips lol. so i'm not super concerned this time...of course i'm not excited about back labor, but at least this time i'll have a birth tub and not be flat in bed hooked up to monitors.

[Mamabeakley]

This baby spends a lot of time posterior, but will line up on one side or the other anterior when I sleep on my side at night. I am so uncomfortable/tired most of the time that I haven't felt able to work much on my posture. I am getting chiropractic care now which may help some. But I have also had 2 previous posterior labors and a posterior birth, so I know that other than it being more uncomfortable my body can birth a posterior baby just fine (it was my biggest baby who was born stargazing, too.). I figure I will encourage anterior positioning during labor as needed and not stress out about it now.

[lulubikes]

My baby has been going back and forth in the position. Until the last week - when it decided the right is most comfy. I do sometimes worry - but really also trust that my baby knows what is the best way to enter my pelvis. I do have conversations that go something like this:

"Usually it is best to be in the left, but you know best. Also try to keep your hands around your chest and head tucked during labor... "

I hope the baby is listening.

Sometimes the baby does end up posterior... so I do try to sit upright and not slouch, but slouching is so comfy! I try to sleep on my left more than right side, but I need to rotate to be comfortable.

I also try, but am not always successful at doing some pelvic rocks/cat-cow as well as the spinning babies inversion daily. But really it's a few times a week.

I took a class from Gail, of the Spinning Babies website - and she is wonderful. I learned a lot. I do think that the exercises can help some people. But it also isn't helpful to stress about it either - in my opinion.

[mamaharrison]

I went into labor with DD in the ROP position, which is the furthest away from optimal positioning--haha. I did have a very long, intense labor, but she rotated eventually and was born OP {with a nuchal arm}. In the beginning of this pregnancy I felt like I wanted to do as much as I could to encourage optimal fetal positioning, and I did lots of reading and research and what I was led to was that active laboring is really the only/best way to encourage rotation and OFP. babe can be engaged in a great position one day and not the next....so, I embrace that the birthing time is meant to be a dance with two {or more sometimes!} partners and that both know their roles and learn the moves during the dance. There really isn't a way to rehearse this and even when you have {previous births} birth happens in the NOW and you have to adapt to whatever it is NOW. So....knowing that ROP/ROT positioning can take some extra patience and tends to follow a certain pattern where it appears that labor stalls or slows considerably for a period of time as the babe rotates through the pelvis can be very pertinent info to help stop uneccessary interventions or worries. It is only concerning to me if those in attendance don't understand this and allow for the physiological birth to unfold in its own time. 

My only advice is that walking should not be your only tool to 'get labor going'--walking easily tires mama out and provides little of what is needed for a right sided babe to rotate. Lots of positon changing may be needed to help facilitate--an active labor is key with right sided babes, IME.

This baby is on my right side--more like ROT/ROA and sometimes is straight up OP in the center of my belly. I am not concerned a bit. Birthing time will happen as it needs to! Although I do wish and hope that it is not quite as long this time.

[stegenrae]

This babe has been in OA for the majority of the time. Sometimes ROA, sometimes LOA, but usually mooning the world--right in the middle. ;) 

I will also add that I am 99% certain DS1 entered the birth canal posterior, but decided to go back and start again and came out more comfortably (for me!). 

[Harmony96]

All I know right now is that he's head down, lol. He moves SO much that it's hard for me to figure out which way he's facing, and he could change within an hour or a day or whatever. I have a belly mapping workbook but the last time I looked at it was at around 20-something weeks, lol.

[travelmumma]

LOA here.
Question- why is LOA the best position? Does it really matter if they are ROA?

[mamaharrison]

Originally Posted by travelmumma 

LOA here.
Question- why is LOA the best position? Does it really matter if they are ROA?

YES it matters if they are ROA! haha
LOA is the position that they engage and enter the pelvis and birth canal from. From ROA a baby has to rotate {and they rotate clockwise--at least most do/will--it has to do with pelvimetry} and so they have to make a complete circle through the pelvis moving first into OP and many babies get caught up her and it is painful for mama and at that time labor can appear to be 'stalled' or 'no progress' is being made, but mama in lots of pain, but in reality it is just a misunderstood phase of the rotation through the pelvis and resolves itself most often without any interventions--it isn't a reason for a cesarean, but MANY women receive a cesarean at this point and are told baby was 'stuck'. So, it is a BIG deal!

[kaliki_kila]

Originally Posted by mamaharrison 

YES it matters if they are ROA! haha
LOA is the position that they engage and enter the pelvis and birth canal from. From ROA a baby has to rotate {and they rotate clockwise--at least most do/will--it has to do with pelvimetry} and so they have to make a complete circle through the pelvis moving first into OP and many babies get caught up her and it is painful for mama and at that time labor can appear to be 'stalled' or 'no progress' is being made, but mama in lots of pain, but in reality it is just a misunderstood phase of the rotation through the pelvis and resolves itself most often without any interventions--it isn't a reason for a cesarean, but MANY women receive a cesarean at this point and are told baby was 'stuck'. So, it is a BIG deal!

This.  I'm glad to know that my baby is ROT and labor might stall for me.  It means I will stay away from the hospital until after baby and my body have figured it all out so they don't label me failure to progress.

[travelmumma]

Hmm think I have gotten the positions confused then... I know that bubs is in the preferred position whatever that is :/ ? And has been for a while which is nice

[mamaharrison]

Originally Posted by travelmumma 

Hmm think I have gotten the positions confused then... I know that bubs is in the preferred position whatever that is :/ ? And has been for a while which is nice

LOA/LOT is the preferred position. SO I don't think you are confused....isn't that what you said baby was in? Also, your baby is dropped an engaged already, so, as a first timer it is unlikely that will change and they typically don't engage in an awkward position {typically}.