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Life made sure I went to the Coalition for Breech Birth Conference in Ottawa, Canada.
Robin Guy and her Coalition co-madres joined efforts with UnderstandingBirthBetter.com Midwife Betty-Anne Daviss. They brought several top breech experts to Canada to share their hope to continue vaginal breech birth on Earth. Starting with Dr.s Andre' Lelonde and Robert Gagnon of the SOCG and ending with Ina May Gaskin, I also got to meet Jane Evans of the UK.
Jane reminds me so much of my late partner and friend, Jan Hofer. They both so get birth and what's important without getting lost in the mental maze, and at the same time, Jane Evans explained breech cardinal movements so well that several of the OBs were saying that now the lights were on. Now they got it and would be trying hands and knees breech birth when they got back to their cities.Robin Guy and her Coalition co-madres joined efforts with UnderstandingBirthBetter.com Midwife Betty-Anne Daviss. They brought several top breech experts to Canada to share their hope to continue vaginal breech birth on Earth. Starting with Dr.s Andre' Lelonde and Robert Gagnon of the SOCG and ending with Ina May Gaskin, I also got to meet Jane Evans of the UK.
Dr.s Frank Louwen and Anke Reitter came with cheerful stats on knees and elbows position (hands and knees, but without straining the wrists). Of 300 breech births with mothers using "knees and elbow" position, only 2 needed help with extended arms and head, even the footlings. Even the primes. This correlates perfectly with midwife observations of hands and knees breech births. Hands-off-the-breech really means hands off. They also didn't touch the baby, basically until trying to catch the baby in mid air before the baby hit the mattress. Hands-off doesn't mean don't touch until the umbilical cord is out, but rather until the head has just come out past the parietal bones and you prevent a fall.
So check these resources for current breech conversations
Society for Obstetrics and Gynaecology of Canada Guidelines for Vaginal Breech Birth
Stand and Deliver
http://www.breechbirth.ca/Welcome.html
http://www.birthinternational.com/product/book/bk846.html
Hands off the Breech by Jane Evans
http://supportdrfischbein.blogspot.com/
http://video.who.int/streaming/rhl/breech_web.wmv
http://www.abreechinthesystem.com/home.html
http://enjoybirth.wordpress.com/2009/09/25/unexpected-cesarean-due-to-surprise-breech-baby/
http://blog.givingbirthnaturally.com/2009/06/vaginal-breech-birth-socg.html
and of course, www.SpinningBabies.com The Breech info has been reorganized, made simpler, but more detailed.
Have fun surfing, there's lots more, but I have to go make dinner...
3 comments:
Dr. Louwen and his team have actually done over 1000 breech births since 2002, and over 300 in knee-elbow position. The 98 number is from their preliminary study comparing the knee-elbow position to mom-on-her-back, after which they decided to use knee-elbow for all their breech deliveries. So it was only 2 out of 300 that needed a full set of Loveset maneuvers, not 2 out of 98.
Oh, thank you, Sora!! You've helped me make sense of my notes! I didn't hear the 1000 number. Thank you.
This just confirms for me what I've observed empirically--woman, when left to choose their own birth position without "directions" from the midwife, physician, or nurse, will often choose a hands and knees, or elbows and knees position. When are we going to start trusting birth? Of course women will instinctively choose the optimal position to get their baby out.
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