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Breech Births Using the PowerBirth Principle!

The very first baby I "caught" which was a breech birth caught me totally by surprise. The mother
called me to her home when she was 7 cm dilated. But, the amniotic sack held so much water
that if it ruptured, I feared a cord prolapse. The baby's head was floating.
I got the mother on the toilet so that gravity might help the baby settle more into the pelvis as she
dilated to 10. The only thing that happened was that the baby decided to flip into the breech
position, which I discovered when the mother got off the toilet and lay down in her bed for me to
examine her.
Now there was a bulging bag of water and absolutely no presenting part. When I palpated her
abdomen to find the baby's position, her water broke, and with the rush of fluid came the cord.
I nearly had a heart attack!
I quickly pushed the cord back inside the mother's body, but as I was doing that she had a
powerful contraction which pushed the baby's butt and feet into the birth canal. Mom was lying
on the bed flat on her back, with just her head resting on a pillow. I asked her to pull her thighs
up as high as she could get them, thereby shortening the birth canal and opening her ischial spines
in the pelvis as wide as they could get, which worked in birthing the baby quickly. The cord was
no longer a problem because I had pushed it up past the baby's body as the child was being born.
Her daughter was born quickly and safely with a perfect Apgar score. My Apgar score was a
different story!
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Waiting For One Hour After Full Dilation
Before Delivering a Breech baby is Dangerous!

If you're going to birth in the hospital and your baby is breech (butt first), then
you will get a cesarean. Most obstetricians today have not been taught how to
deliver a breech baby vaginally in medical school.
If you're going to give birth at home with midwives and your baby is breech, you
need to know what is being taught in one of the textbooks for women training to
become CPM's (Certified Professional Midwives). They are being taught that a
laboring woman with a breech baby should not be allowed to push her baby out
until she has been complete (10 cm) for one hour. This is to assure that the
cervix won't clamp down on the baby's after coming head- the body already
having been born. This is also based on the teachings of the "Rule of Ten" (no
woman must ever push until her cervix is completely gone).
How valid are these teachings? Is this dangerous for the baby?

I have only delivered 11 breeches at home; Elizabeth has delivered 14, so what I
offer you here is information based on these experiences. However, they were all
born successfully using the PowerBirth Principle (trusting that when the uterus is
pushing powerfully and giving the mother the desire to bear down, that she
should do just that)- that is, all except one baby who had to be transferred to the
hospital for anoxia (this was the only baby whose mother refrained from her
natural pushing urges for one hour).
I believe that it is important for midwives to have more than one option to
choose from when attending births, especially at home. And, if a mother is
planning to give birth at home without help, then she ought to know that there
are techniques she can use to birth her breech baby other than the established
ones which are based on the "Rule of Ten".
There is no difference between a mother birthing a head down baby and wanting
to push before complete dilation from a mother birthing a breech baby. In either
case, contractions are powerful for a reason- it takes that kind of POWER to
push a baby out, especially one coming upside down.

Elizabeth decided to put aside her confidence, and quit trusting that the mother's
body knew what to do- in that one breech birth where the baby had to be
transferred for anoxia. She was now a CPM and Liscensed Midwife in the State
of Utah and was obliged to follow the rules of the State. She was no longer
allowed to deliver breech babies at home unless it was undiagnosed beforehand-
as in this case.

In that one hour, the laboring woman did everything in her power not to push,
though it was the hardest thing she had ever done. In that one hour, the uterus
decided that if its efforts were to be ignored, there was no point in trying any
longer- so contractions stopped. Of course, the uterus was tired!

In the course of that one hour, the baby was now in trouble, whereas before the
heart had been beating just fine- now the baby needed oxygen, which Liz
administered to the mother. Now it was necessary for the mother to push her
baby out without the help of the uterus and for Liz to do all that fancy
maneuvering which the textbooks teach about delivering breech babies. Quite
simply- it was now up to the mother and Liz. The uterus was on strike. The
baby was in trouble.

Is this going to happen to every mother who waits for an hour? Maybe- maybe
not!
But, the point is this- midwives adamantly claim that a mother's body knows
what to do and that no one should ever tell a mother during labor what to do.
Okay, fair enough- then, why do midwives consistently tell the mother to stop
pushing when it is clearly evident that this is wrong advice and completely
contradicts what they so proudly proclaim to be the truth?

When I "deliver" a breech baby, the mother is in the same position that mothers
are in who give birth to babies in the head down position.
Pillows are stacked up behind her to support her in a semi-sitting position at a 45
degree angle backwards.
Her thighs are pulled up (by her) and her feet are supported by two of her
favorite people present at the birth. They act as her stirrups and she can push
against their hands when she needs to.
This opens the pelvis as wide as it can open and shortens the birth canal like an
accordion. The baby doesn't have far to exit.
When contractions are strong and come one after the other, creating in her a real
urge to help by bearing down, the cervix (which is now thin, stretchy, and soft)
just yields to the pressure of the push (by the mother, not me) and slips easily
over the butt.
Supporting the baby's emerging body with both my hands, I feel the awesome
power of the energy of birth, pushing the baby naturally through the labyrinth of
its inner world, ready to go through the veil that separates us from the other side.

When the body is fully born, I allow its little body to hang down by its mothers
bottom long enough to see the nape of its neck appear at the vaginal opening.
Then, I ask the mother to push hard while I lift the body back up to allow the
baby's head to follow the curve of the birth canal upwards.
If the baby's head seems to have difficulty coming out, I press firmly down on
the mother's perineum, which usually releases the head immediately.

I do not wait for a contraction to start once the body is out. The baby needs to
be able to breathe as quickly as possible.
I have not had to do all the maneuvers described in the textbooks for breech
births because I trust in the mother's body to do that itself. I trust that her uterus
knows what to do.

All the things taught in the medical texts about breeches need to be studied and
learned by midwives. But, they'll never take the place of common sense.

Common sense is an uncommon degree in what the world
calls wisdom!
Samuel Taylor Coleridge