Were you offered vaginal breech birth?

[Robinna]

Breaking out of the other thread - I'm really encouraged to hear how many women here were offered vaginal breech delivery.

So - were you faced with breech birth? What option(s) were presented to you?

I'd like to know the demographics - where are these practitioners who are offering it? Are you in North America or overseas? and if you are, US or Canada? Do you live in an urban centre or a more rural area? And did you have the choice of home or hospital, or was one of these restricted?

also - what year was your breech baby born?

[DoomaYula]

I might throw off your data -- Yes, I was offered a vaginal breech birth in the U.S. but... it was a second-twin thing. My doc said that as long as the first twin was vertex, I could have a vaginal birth. Second twin was feet first breech. Doc and everyone just assumed that he'd turn or they'd do a version or something to get him vertex.

HA! Joke was on them! I birthed him feet first. He was almost twice as big as his vertex brother, and I don't recall it feeling any different.

[bikruca]

my ob agreed to let me do both twins breech- which is pretty out of the norm- i am in canada

[kerikadi]

This baby was breech until 35 weeks and my MW was fine with me delivering breech at home BUT this is my 5th baby which I think makes a difference, at least to my MW who has watched me give birth before and believes in my abilities

Keri

[alegna]

I have not had a breech baby. BUT my midwife is fine with breech delivery. She would have even kept me if my first was breech.

-Angela

[hapersmion]

Hmm, I hope I answered the right way. I put "No, I wasn't offered" - my midwives weren't allowed by their rules to do it, and no doctors would - c/s was the only option. I did find the Farm and have my breech baby there, but since I had to travel, I wouldn't say it was "offered" to me.

I'm in Knoxville, TN, so it's an urban center, and my son was born in 2006.

My choice was an almost-home birth at the Farm, or a c/s in the hospital.

hapersmion

[StrawberryFields]

My baby was not breech but I had concurrent care with an OB who was in practice with another OB who would do vaginal breech deliveries. So if my baby was breech I could have transferred into his care. However, he did vaginal breech deliveries but was also very commanding and "old school" : so it would have been a trade off.

[Robinna]

Strawberry - ITA there may not be a tremendous difference in experience between c/s and North American style vaginal breech-extraction (diff in recovery, yes, but in pleasantness of experience? not much). I've obviously had a lot of thinking time on this one and I know now that, as long as I knew the OB was qualified to catch, once at the hospital would be flat-out refusing to let them touch me unless I ran into a problem. (Hence my latest fantasies about squatting pushing out my breech baby onto the floor in the OR because *I* know this to be a safer position than lithotomy for breech even if they don't.) I'd be saying "yes yes" to whatever they said in consult but I'd be lying, and then do what I needed to do when push came to shove. I half want a breech baby again just to SHOW them that a breech can be born safely vaginally without any interference whatsoever.

[Peony]

Breech babies are an automatic C/S at the local hospitals. The first HB MW I went with for DD2 did not do breech births, I ended up switching MW's and the 2nd one did. DD2 was not breech though.

[lrlittle]

yes, but i had to transfer care.

[roseq]

I was offered a vaginal breech birth with my homebirth (illegal) midwife. I live in Maryland.

[ckhagen]

I was not offered vaginal breech. No OB within 4 hours of here would attempt it. I even begged for an external version and my OB would not even consider it (no particular reason why). Luckily my baby turned at 39 weeks and my demand for another u/s to check positioning while being prepped for the c-section was met.

I am in a resort/suburban area in the Southeast US. The closest major metropolitan area is about 4 hours away.

[Novella]

I answered "yes, I live in Canada" but feel I need to qualify this as it wasn't quite that simple for our recent vertex-breech twin delivery:

We first saw an obstetrician in a city 3-hours drive away. Although he commented something about me being able to have a vaginal birth whether the babies were vertex, breech, or transverse we really felt he gave our question short-shrift and was someone who would say anything to satisfy the discussion at the moment, then do whatever he wanted when the time came. He also worked in a group with 10 other obstetricians, so who's to know what we would have gotten. That was part of the reason we sought another OB.

Women from my area usually deliver in one of 3 hospitals all nearer than that one. One won't do twins - a couple of the older doctors there MAY do singleton breeches. Another other (a city that is large enough to have 3 obstetricians) won't have ANYTHING to do with breech presentation (singleton, second-twin, multi-para, whatever). You get a c-section or you get transferred to a larger city. I was rather shocked to learn that was the situation with all 3 OBs there.

We ended up transferring care to an OB in another city 3.5-4.0 hours drive away. Our twins settled into vertex-breech at around 28 weeks and stayed that way for the remainder of the pregnancy. We were OFFERED only immediate total breech extraction of the second twin. We declined this standard of care and insisted on a spontaneous breech birth of the second twin, with interventions only in the case of an emergency. The doctor was EXTREMELY uncomfortable with this. Doctor wanted to cease caring for us, but felt we would then be left with a disastrous unattended home birth as likely no other OB would take us on.

In the end, labour went so fast we ended up at an entirely different hospital that doesn't deliver twins right now as they have lost their OB. We were TOLD by the attending doctor that I was getting a c-section (which we declined). We argued against an external version (due to its risks and lack of success in eventually birthing versioned baby vertex). Basically, the only reason we got the breech delivery is we were completely resolute against other methods. Twin B was footling breech. He was born effortlessly (as far as one can use that term in birthing!) 17 minutes after his brother.

So although I answered "yes", it is with a LOT of qualifying. . . I felt the choices that the doctors offered were terrible.

[maxmama]

Five years ago, in Seattle, I was offered an induction for a persistent breech (failed ECV x 3) at 36 weeks (pre-e/HELLP/long story). It was unlikely to work (my Bishop score was 1 or 2), but I should have given it a try.

[OnTheFence]

I was offered a vaginal breech birth for my first baby that was transverse, however she was going to have to be a frank breech for the delivery. I declined that option 1) it was my first baby and 2) my doctor was green. Most the doctors in this area that did vaginal breech births are now retired - which is sad.

[applejuice]

My sister was a breech and born in 1961. She was the fifth child and my mom was offered no other option except a caesarean section even though she had a "proven pelvis" with four previous uncomplicated vaginal births at home no less.

She found a doctor who would deliver "from below" for her frank breech. My mom checked out four hours after delivery, unheard of in an age when women stayed in the hospital for seven days after delivery. My mom went on to have four more uncomplicated vaginal births, at home, UC.

[Socks!]

I need to clarify too.
I lived in the US. My first MW (CNM) would have never agreed. To her that was one of the reasons why you *needed* a cesarean. So my 2nd MW (Thank God I found her, LM) didn't have a problem with him being breech. She said she didn't care as long as I wanted to do it. My doula was offering to find Dr's who do breech births and even showed me a video of one of her clients. Especially after seeing the video the Dr. route was completely out of the question. The woman had to yell at the Dr., while pushing out babe, not to cut her. Awful! Plus they only do frank breeches.

So anyway, my LM MW in CA would have done any breech. He ended up not being breech. I didn't know I had that much room in me. He kept flipping up until he was born. The MW was always entertained, lol.

Off topic, but can I warn about my first MW? She was so into interventions! And had a big issue with poop. Really into enemas and all. Ugh.
Is it against the UA to share her name and her webpage? Or is there a place where I could warn other Mamas, so they won't have to go through what I had to with her?

Thx!

2JM

[Jude Rose]

yes, but i'm another twin example. as long as the first was vertex, the second could be breech. they ended up both vertex.
i had two different ob's and both had these terms.

[clavicula]

Yes, and I live outside North America.
Baby turned vertex, though, a week or so ago.

[roxyrox]

I voted yes and I live outside N. America. In the end though my ds turned just before my due date. They offered me a ECV at 38 weeks but I refused as I think it can really stress the baby and I was happy to go with a breech delivery if he didn't turn natrually.