[Storm Bride]

I just want a variety of professional opinions on this. It's just a matter of curiousity - nothing going on at present.

IYO, is it possible for a first-time mom to have her baby flip breech during labour at term?

 

[mamato3cherubs]

I feel there is nothing that is impossible in labor and birth. BUT sometimes I am suspicious that a "turned breech" is actually an undiagnosed breech to begin with. I dont have personal experience with it yet though myself, just going from listening and learning from others. So I didnt vote.

 

[mwherbs]

babies can do anything in labor-- there are some indisputable cases where they put a scalp electrode into a baby's head and then at birth the presentation is breech- with the electrode still attached to the scalp--

 

[Surfacing]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mwherbs babies can do anything in labor-- there are some indisputable cases where they put a scalp electrode into a baby's head and then at birth the presentation is breech- with the electrode still attached to the scalp--

Poor baby.

 

[onelilguysmommy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mwherbs babies can do anything in labor-- there are some indisputable cases where they put a scalp electrode into a baby's head and then at birth the presentation is breech- with the electrode still attached to the scalp--

aww, poor babe trying to get away!

 

[jenmidwife2b]

Anything is possible, just as breeches can flip to vertex, so vertex babes could flip to breech.

 

[Storm Bride]

Thanks.

This was what happened with ds1. I laboured at home for a while, and was up all night by myself at first. My labour was atypical of everything I'd heard (one long, steady backache, with no discernible contractions for about the first 5-6 hours), and I didn't know it was labour. During that time, a lump, which later turned out to be ds1's head, appeared to the right of my navel. It hadn't been there before labour. I was a first-time mom and assumed it was just baby rotating, and was probably his bum.

Anyway - I ended up sectioned for "missed" breech, and every care provider I've had since insists that it was impossible that he'd turned...but my GP had felt his head the day before I went into labour, and I know what happened. It's nice to know that some people believe it can - makes me more optimistic about the kind of care dd may get one day.

 

[dewi]

I want to take a guess that the Baby could have really been transverse and not engaged deeply in your pelvis (your back labor is a clue to transverse ) then moved into breech position as labor progressed.

 

[Storm Bride]

It's possible. This is ds1, who is now 16, so obviously it was a long time ago. I had the backache all night, and when I had light again, baby's head was up by my belly button. The doctor had felt the head down at the bottom (not engaged, but in vertex position) for several visits at that point. When the hospital staff found out he was breech, my GP accepted the "missed breech" diagnosis...but I never did. The nurse and intern (resident? can't remember) who examined me both noticed the head was out of position immediately. If ds1 had been transverse, I can't imagine that the GP would have missed it...

Oh, well - I'll never know for sure, but it is nice to know that it's possible. I've been told that "can't" happen with a first-time mom, because the uterus is too tight. (I let myself get bullied into my first RCS on a similar note, because the OB was so insistent that dd was "too big to turn" that late in the pregnancy - 39 weeks).

 

[aja-belly]

in my recent labor/birth i had an ultrasound when i was admitted and baby a was head down.

:

then when he was born i caught his butt in my hand. i was SO confused!

he absolutely without a doubt turned breech from head down during labor. i was not a first time mom, though.

i was not a first time mom, but if "uterus is too tight" is the reason it would not be possible it seems like twins would make it even tighter in there.

 

[georgia]

Moving to Birth and Beyond

 

[Jilian]

I'm a labor doula and this happened to my first client during labor. She came into the hospital with baby clearly head down and when it was time to push her OB checked her and felt a bum instead of a head. She had a quick u/s and they confirmed baby was breech and she had a cesarean birth because of it.