The breech

My baby had been in breach position to and fro in the last weeks before she was born in week 41 +2 and my blood pressure had been a tad high during those last weeks. I'm also overweight. I had to come in to the midwives office so that she and a colleague could use an old ultrasound to examine what was up, and what was down. We we're actually wrong once, mistaking a butt for a head. First time around we gave it a week and she turned by herself, but by the next appointment she was the wrong way around again. I think this was in week 37. We talked and I was asked if I was willing to try external cephalic version at the labour ward, made by a doctor. I was informed they only have a success rate of 6/10 and that many find it “highly stressful” mostly due to the cortisone-injection that is so huge the heart starts racing. Also, they said some went into labor, so I had to be prepared.

My alternatives was the reversal, waiting it out & maybe having a breech birth or having a scheduled c-section. I opted for the reversal and my partner took time off from work. We were scheduled for the next morning at 11 am and he fasted with me at home in sympathy. We got there early, as instructed and I changed into hospital gowns and were hooked up to a fetal heart monitor. A nurse arrived with her student and the student felt through my stomach and they did an ultrasound. The student stated the baby was in breach and then the nurse agreed after doing her own check up. Then we waited while the heart monitor whirred. My partner fell asleep. They were going to give me the cortisone next so they put a needle in my arm.

Then the doctor entered, she was Norwegian and had a funny dialect, stating she was going to give the baby a gentle “push” which in her dialect became the Swedish word for “fuck”. I giggled.

She looked confused. Then she started the ultrasound, wanting a good look at the baby before they injected me with anything since they we’re worried how I’d react to heart palpitations. She looked puzzled. “But this baby isn’t in breech position!”

She called the nurse & student and showed them the screen. The student flushed. The “head” she had felt with her hands and seen on the screen was once more a butt.

They removed the needle in my arm and it began to bleed quite a bit and so I was given a unreasonably big bandage on my arm.

Everyone apologized and I said it was a nice (unmedicated) adventure and then me and my partner broke our fast with a nice steak lunch.

Now, if she had stayed in breech and I had opted for a vaginal birth this would have been important. She had to weigh more than 2 kg (4,4 lb) and less than 4 kg (8,8 lb). They would have x-rayed my pelvis to see if she would have fit through. They would also have tried getting me a midwife that had done many breech births since it’s become more and more uncommon to try a vaginal births with these. 9/10 babies in breech position are delivered by a caesarian.