A Different Birth

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664730Brighton Breech Conference, 11 November 2014

Wow! On my way home to Norwich after an amazing day in Brighton.

The day was organised by Jenny Davidson, currently Acting Deputy Head of Midwifery at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton. Jenny is an inspirational midwife, and doing great things to empower both midwives and women with breech babies. She’s nearing the end of a PhD and started the study day off with a research round-up, exploring why the heavily criticised Term Breech Trial has had such an impact on breech practice, and presenting other evidence which widens the discussion and decision-making process for breech. (See Premoda and Toivonen for a start, but Jenny had several pages of references.) The increasing amount of qualitative research revealing women’s experiences of breech pregnancy and childbirth was also discussed. (See Guittier for a start.)

Following this, Benna Waites discussed ‘talking breech’ – how we counsel women with breech-presenting babies. She stressed the importance of recognising that the risks to women of CS are not inconsequential, and of remaining non-judgemental even when women are making decisions which professionals may not feel are the ‘right’ ones. Benna, author of the ‘breech bible’ – Breech Birth – is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, as well as the mother of a breech-born baby. She brings these important perspectives into her presentations. I hope that well-informed, deeply immersed service user advocates like Benna can in the future participate more fully in discussions around national guidelines, such as those written by NICE and RCOG.

Jane Evans continues to inspire a new generation of midwives presenting her excellent knowledge of the mechanisms of breech birth, and how to assist when help is required, built upon decades of clinical practice. Jane has authored many articles, but her more recent publications in Essentially MIDIRS should be essential reading for professionals seeking to modernise their breech practice.

Today was the first time I have had the opportunity to hear from Dr Michele Mohajer, co-author of this UK-based study) and Consultant Obstetrician at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital in Shropshire. Michele has run a breech clinic there since 1997, where both breech and ECV have been well supported. Her ECV success rate is excellent, approximately 60%. She shared with us several of her methods for increasing the likelihood of succeeding. There are few things I like more than hearing someone with excellent clinical skills discuss their techniques. I especially admired Dr Mohajer’s discussion of the influence of gaining the woman’s trust and co-operation to her success rates. Her ECV films were excellent and a really useful practice update. I hope Dr Mohajer is also able to reach wider audiences to share her classic obstetric skills. Women who wish to have their babies turned deserve for the practitioners attempting this to have success rates as high as possible.

Hopefully others will share their personal highlights from the day. And (although this study day was sold out), we all look forward to more obstetricians and midwives attending future study days. Please do get involved, share your experiences, develop your services. As several people remarked today, it really does feel like the green shoots of change are growing for breech.

Shawn

Breech updating

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(Another post in response to discussion on the Coalition for Breech Birth Facebook Page.)

Breech births are few and far between, and there are very few ‘experts’ in the world to learn from, so staying updated is a real challenge. Especially if you do not live and work near others who are supporting breech births regularly.

Updating has two purposes: keeping up to date with current evidence and best practice; and reminding yourself how to use skills you use infrequently. Many breech babies, especially those whose mothers are active and upright (e.g. knees/elbows), can be born spontaneously. But those who cannot need calm, considered help in a timely manner. The same applies to external cephalic version – ECV. Both practices benefit from regular performance and knowledge sharing among those who are practicing.

Here are my suggestions on keeping your practice as safe and supportive as possible:

  1. Attend study days. Many individuals offer study days to develop breech skills. Breech Birth Network days concentrate on lots of practical skills, but also have an emphasis on care pathway planning in the UK, aiming to encourage more Trusts to adopt an organised, committed approach to breech.
  2. Share your work. If you are doing research or working with breech and would like to share your experiences, get in touch and present at one of the study days. I am not an expert, but an experienced and passionate believer in the idea that the more we share, the more we talk about it, the more normal it becomes. The best study days have a wide variety of speakers and reflect a wide community dedicated to developing and sharing skills.
  3. Share your experiences. If you learned something at a breech birth you attended that might help us to make our practice safer, share it! Publish it if appropriate, but if you need to share anonymously to protect your client’s and your confidentiality, I can give you space on this blog. It is wonderful and encouraging to hear stories of triumphant breech births where the baby just fell out singing. But we need to hear the stories of doubt and sadness as well, and often these are the ones you learn the most from.
  4. Create your own network. It’s been so valuable to me to have colleagues who I can phone up to debrief the breech births I’ve attended. I learn so much more by doing this. And so valuable to hear their stories, how they have approached certain complications, how they support women, their thoughts on what makes breech birth safe. Keep a record of these sessions and document them; they are part of your professional updating. Write an article about what you have learned together, so that others can respond to it. We need more voices talking about breech skills.
  5. Organise your own study day. Bring the conversation to you. Empower those local to you to share their skills by asking them to present. Inspire your local community to think more about breech.

If you don’t have anyone local to ask questions or debrief with, my number is 07947819122 (in the UK) and I’m always happy to listen. I’m sure most of us are. Good luck!

How much does breech experience matter?

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Some friends of mine at the Coalition for Breech Birth (a consumer advocacy organisation) have been discussing the role of practitioner experience in reducing risk associated with vaginal breech birth. My response is a bit longer than Facebook will permit, so I’m putting it here.

The study I find most useful in this discussion is here:

Su M, McLeod L, Ross S, Willan A, Hannah WJ, Hutton E, et al. Factors associated with adverse perinatal outcome in the Term Breech Trial. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2003 Sep;189(3):740-5. PubMed PMID: 14526305. Epub 2003/10/04. eng.

Overall, the team found very few factors associated with an increase or reduction of risk of adverse perinatal outcome. They did find a dose-reponse relationship between amount of labour and adverse outcome. In other words, a pre-labour CS seemed to afford the most benefit, followed by early labour CS. By the time you are in active labour (>3 cm), there is no longer a statistically significant difference between CS and vaginal birth. So I get particularly annoyed when this study is used to tell women who arrive in advanced labour with an undiagnosed breech that a CS is the safest option.

They also found, contrary to popular belief, that big babies (>3500g) fared no worse than more averaged weight babies, but small babies (<2800g) did. Makes sense to me. Generally but not always, babies who are very small at term may already be slightly compromised; labour may be an additional stress. On the other hand, if a chunky 9-pounder folded in half can fit both his abdomen and his legs through your pelvis, chances are his head is going to fit, especially if you are with someone who knows how to help it into an optimal position.

He also needs to fit without help, because the study also revealed that using augmentation to enhance a labour which is not progressing well enough on its own was associated with over twice the risk of labours which proceeded spontaneously. Similarly, longer second stages increased the risk, so our baby needs to be descending fairly easily in the second stage, without help, or a CS may be the better option.

But the only factor shown to reduce the risk associated with a vaginal breech birth (by over 2/3) is the presence of an experienced clinician at the birth. This person need not be a licensed obstetrician, and the years of experience did not make a difference either – the TBT team specifically looked at these factors. The risk reduction occurred only when ‘an experienced clinician was defined as a clinician who judged him or herself to be skilled at vaginal breech delivery, confirmed by the Head of Department.’ Midwives were among those included in this definition.

Although we do not (yet) have any research (get back to me in a decade or so) which looks at the results of spontaneous breech birth with experienced clinicians at term, this analysis of the TBT suggests that this scenario is significantly less risky than many of the births included in the trial which were responsible for adverse outcomes. Add to that the further benefits we are seeing emerge with upright breech (reduction in need for manoeuvres and the minor injuries these can sometimes cause), and vaginal breech birth is a realistic option for many women.

One further comment on the research: Many are frustrated because the results of retrospective observational studies overwhelmingly indicate similar outcomes for vaginal breech birth and planned CS. These have comparatively little influence on guidelines because they are considered ‘biased.’ However, understanding why they are biased is sometimes useful. Retrospective studies are most often done by experienced practitioners who feel their own results conflict with the lowest common denominator represented by a large multi-centre RCT like the TBT. They present these results to illustrate that a comparatively safe vaginal breech service is possible, despite the fact that breech is often grossly mismanaged in many areas. Retrospective studies do not necessarily represent the ‘norm.’ But they do suggest, along with the TBT’s own data, that if your provider feels confident supporting you to have a vaginal breech birth, you can probably feel pretty confident as well.

Update 2015: A meta-analysis of observational studies indicates significantly better short-term outcomes when CS is planned than when VBB is planned. However, the rate of complications following planned VBB is much less than reported in the Term Breech Trial and similar to the results when a cephalic birth is planned. Read Berhan et al 2015 by clicking the link.

Shawn

Hypnosis for childbirth: medical or social intervention?

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fundingI’m feeling slightly bemused again by the obstetric interest in whether hypnosis for childbirth has been shown to ‘work’ via randomised controlled trial (RCT), following the on-line advanced publication of another large RCT in the BJOG (Cyna et al 2013). They’ve flown straight into the hen house again, stirring up a lively Twitter debate, made more timely because the Duchess of Cambridge apparently used hypnobirthing in the successful birth of her first child.

EBM labour coping

But was she following evidence based medicine (EBM)? No, she was not. Women do not follow EBM when it comes to labour coping strategies. They follow social medicine. They look around for women who they feel are ‘like’ themselves, women who share the same philosophy towards birth as they do, women who have experienced birth in the way they hope to. They explore available coping strategies and pick a few which are in tune with the coping strategies they use outside of the microcosmic birth world. And of course, they look to their midwives on the day.

in and out of NHS

Our risk-focused maternity culture is particularly poor at sending the message to women: “Your body was designed to do this. You can do this, you are strong, and you will cope. And if you need help, it will be there.” Instead we give women the message that they will need to ‘do’ something extra in order to be able to birth normally. When it comes to pharmacological pain relief, many would rather have ‘nothing,’ and hypnosis is about as close to nothing as you can get. Apparently the data back me up.

yoga

My major problem with Cyna et al’s study is that it takes what seems to work in a social setting, e.g. a group of women who share similar beliefs and are looking for similar things out of childbirth, and a facilitator who nurtures self-belief and enhances new and familiar coping strategies over a period of time, and they medicalise it. The 3 hypnosis sessions in this study were delivered by a doctor trained in hypnosis, only 50% attended all three sessions, and some allocated to the training even chose to attend a different hypnosis training group outside of the intervention. This suggests to me that the intervention was not very appealing on a social level. Every article published seems to acknowledge that the pared down version used in an RCT isn’t quite like what is practised in today’s hypnobirthing and natal hypnotherapy classes which are so popular with women, where women receive on-going support from their classmates and instructors.

blinding and biasAdditionally, these researchers blinded health professionals involved to group allocation, a fault I have discussed the last time this debate flew up (although in the Cyna study it is difficult to imagine how health professionals remained blinded to allocation when some groups were asked to use a CD in labour and others were not). Again, my issue is with the medicalisation of a social art. Part of my job as a midwife is to facilitate an environment which supports a woman’s natural coping skills. If I do not know what coping strategies she is using, I am much less likely to get that right. Blinding in a trial like this is neither possible nor desirable.

questions

With various types of research trials turning up conflicting information, the pragmatic in me deals with this by imagining how certain conversations might play out.

Woman: Does hypnobirthing work?

Me: It depends on what you mean by ‘work’ (and what you mean by ‘hypnobirthing,’ but that’s more complicated so I’m not going to say it out loud – yet).

If by ‘work,’ you mean you want it to relieve your labour pain, in a general population it has not been shown to be as effective as water or Entonox.

If by ‘work,’ you mean you are hoping to avoid unnecessary interventions such as instrumental or surgical delivery, in a general population hypnobirthing has not been shown to do that. Home birth and continuity have both been shown to do that very effectively. If your Trust is not practising evidence based medicine by ensuring you have access to these, having another woman support you and your partner during labour is also helpful. She need not have special training. Someone just being there the whole time will have the same effect.

If by ‘work,’ you mean you will look back on your childbirth experience and decide that was effective for you, the answer is, “Many women feel hypnobirthing has been effective for them, but whether it will be for you is down to many individual factors. I suggest you follow your instincts on this one.”

*****

Woman: My friend recommended this hypnobirthing class to me, but I don’t really like it. What do you think? I really want a natural birth.

Me: I think you ought to spend the evenings out doing something lovely with your partner instead. Your body was designed to give birth, you will be able to do it when the time comes, and we will do our best to support you. If you need help, we will be here. (See also above suggestions re: ‘working.’)

*****

Woman: I started doing a hypnobirthing class, which I really like, but when I talked about it with my consultant, he said it was quackery. What do you think?

Me: If you can’t be a bit quacky in labour, when can you? He may have never watched someone use hypnobirthing effectively in labour. I think you ought to follow your instincts on this one and do what gives you confidence. We will support you.

*****

Commissioner: Should we fund hypnosis antenatal classes for the women using our maternity services?

Me: No. We should not fund complementary therapies which have not been proven effective, but we should educate midwives in appropriately supporting women who choose to use them. We should also stop funding unnecessary extra ultrasounds which are requested against available evidence of their lack of effectiveness in improving outcomes, and significant effectiveness in increasing unnecessary interventions, incurring further associated costs. We should then channel the money we have saved into a more reliable home birth service (which has been proven to be the least costly option with no change in outcomes for multips, and a significant decrease in interventions) and more continuity services (also proven to improve outcomes), targeted first at those who need them most. Midwives should then use their clinical judgement and experience to support the individual women in their care, rather than referring them all to bare bones antenatal classes.

(Or some such similar argument, depending on which non-evidence-based intervention is currently most overused while many midwives run around like headless chickens trying to provide evidence based one-to-one care, desperately clinging to techniques like hypnosis which might help more women to do it by themselves when midwives cannot be at their sides providing individualised care.)

Upcoming study day: Promoting Normal Birth & Hypnobirthing Conference, 19/6/14

Who decides what is right?

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Like many, I’ve been dismayed by the on-line report of the RCM’s recent legal birth conference.

And I’ve been so thankful for the very clear-headed response of Birthrights.

As a midwife I regularly work with women who decide that continuous monitoring (CTG) is not the ‘right’ choice for them, despite our guidelines and recommendations that it is advisable for breech-presenting babies in labour. Of course I have the skills and competency to care for them without it, and of course I would strongly recommend they reconsider if the clinical situation were unclear without it. I felt completely deflated that a leading barrister was quoted as saying something which suggested that if I offer women the choice to do what they, rather than the professionals, feel is ‘right,’ I could be putting my registration at risk.

In offering women real choices and standing by them when they make unpopular ones, I might now be accused of promoting an ‘ideology of normality.’ Did those words really come out of the mouth of someone who sits on the NMC panel, at an RCM conference? Someone wake me up.

How could anyone who talks to student midwives today get the idea that they are only exposed to normality? While universities are doing their best to ensure they get some exposure, the students I meet across the UK are usually gagging to see more ‘normal’ births. If they are graduating with no understanding of how to read a CTG, it is definitely not because they haven’t seen them used. It is likely because their mentors are overstretched and have not had the time to mentor them fully during placements. If they cannot cope with a PPH, it is probably because they have been sent running after the ever-increasing paperwork while the PPH’s are happening, rather than being facilitated to gain experience and understanding in the moment.

I originally trained in the US, mostly in out-of-hospital settings, freestanding midwifery led units and home births. Exclusively ‘normal’ settings where almost all women chose physiological third stages. My experience of managing the not infrequent PPH’s in these environments, and having the time to debrief, reflect and consolidate those skills with continuity from my mentors over time, gave me great confidence in my own midwifery fundamentals. My experience of managing shoulder dystocias without an emergency buzzer arm’s reach away did the same.

To speak of an ideology of normality is almost sinister next to the claims that the NHS is not obligated to provide a home birth service, and that women should be told they may not have this choice. The Birthplace in England study demonstrated clearly that home births for low-risk women are significantly more cost effective than births in a consultant unit, for all women they significantly decrease levels of intervention (improving outcomes for women), and for women who have previously had a baby the outcomes for baby are just as good as in hospital.

So why is it that home birth services across England are frequently unreliable or unavailable to women, when at the same time non-evidenced-based, expensive uses of technology or other interventions are being used? For example, routine third trimester scans. They do not improve outcomes, and they increase unnecessary interventions (more cost). Yet they are still being used in some Trusts, requiring resources to schedule, administer, interpret and counsel. There are many other examples, reflecting a pervasive ideology and resource allocation agenda very divergent from what most midwives understand as ‘normality.’

So don’t be surprised if midwives, frustrated by unfair and non-evidence-based resource allocations and increasing cut-backs, start doing weird things like attending home births on days off because they cannot bear to keep letting women down. A friend of mine is fond of quoting Ina May Gaskin in times like this: “People are often punished for doing the right thing.”

Reminder: This is my personal view, and not that of the Trust that I work for (which incidentally is not one of the many Trusts which currently offer routine third trimester scans).

Update: 19/7/13 Turns out the RCM doesn’t endorse the comments made by the speakers they invited to their Legal Birth Conference who were quoted without challenge in the only report published about the conference on the RCM website. Somewhat confusing, but Cathy Warwick clarifies. Good to have the salient points clarified, but when the home birth service is unreliable about 50% of time (as reported in an MSLC meeting) in your local area (not my workplace), it’s hard to share the view that resource shortages which jeopardise the HB service are an ‘extreme situation’ with which women should have patience.

Further clarification: I still love the RCM and I’m still a member, still hanging in there, hoping for better for midwives, midwifery and women.

Listen to midwives, listen to women

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I always smile when people say, “It’s all well and good to support natural breech birth, but what happens if the head gets stuck?” Those of us who are supporting woman-centred, modern breech birth take an equally realistic view about the need to intervene in a skilled and confident manner when help is needed, although we are probably more realistic about the frequency with which such intervention is required. We also obsess about creating trusting relationships and environments which facilitate more spontaneous, easier births, with the end result that we need to use our skills less often.

However we sometimes rely on these skills to achieve a safe outcome. Therefore we share our experiences with others, for when they might be needed. And we know that supporting others to confidently support more breech births will create new knowledge which will in turn help us to improve our own practice.

Where does this knowledge come from? Hint: not Randomised Controlled Trials. One of the many ways midwives create knowledge about practice is by listening to each other and listening to women. For example, in the training aid linked above, one of the options involves assisting a woman who is on all fours to become straight upright on her knees, and applying suprapubic pressure. This is how my own personal learning about that happened (participants not identified to maintain confidentiality):

The baby’s head was hyperextended at the time of delivery, but not before. Woman on all fours, no progress with the next contraction, no spontaneous movements from the baby to assist his own flexion. Neither the midwife managing nor the Registrar who was supporting could reach the baby’s chin, just what felt like a bird beak (the lower jaw bone) pointed up to the sky, so Mariceau-Cronk was not an option. All present were fairly inexperienced, and no training aids were available, so the decision to get the woman upright was instinctive. The decision to apply suprapubic pressure while doing so was based on RCOG guidelines about how to help when the woman is in lithotomy, transcribed to the current situation. The occiput was felt during suprapubic pressure. Then suddenly the baby’s head dropped into the pelvis, and was immediately born wearing his placenta like a hat. Several minutes of resuscitation were required. Baby recovered quickly and well.

Following on from this story, I returned to the sources I use over and over again. Anne Frye’s Holistic Midwifery described how some midwives get the woman upright (for breech and shoulder dystocia) because this tightens the abdominal muscles, promoting head flexion. So someone else has a theory for how it works. There is also increasing radiological evidence that when upright or prone (e.g. shoulders, pelvis and knees in a straight line), the pelvic inlet is largest, while squatting significantly enlarges the mid-pelvis and pelvic outlet. The strategy of assisting the woman to move into an upright posture and use suprapubic pressure may have resulted in an even better outcome if performed earlier, as soon as the dystocia was identified.

Once you begin to see the patterns, they emerge in the stories you immerse yourself in. Reading Jennie Clegg’s story about her ‘Breech VBAC at home,’ I found this:

The next push I gave it everything I had and rumping happened very quickly followed by the body; the relief of the pressure was immense. Two sharp sensations happened which were the legs releasing, I remember looking through my legs and seeing a little body! Then there were a few sharp uncomfortable movements which were caused by the baby wriggling its arms out. My contractions at this point had stopped.

Debs could see no chin on the chest to examined me and found the head to be extended. An ambulance was called and Debs started manoeuvres to birth the baby. No movement was felt so I was encouraged to change position and Michelle tried nipple stimulation to get contractions coming. Michelle and James helped me to stand, Debs attempted head flexion, movement was felt and I was encouraged to push, baby was born immediately followed by the placenta! (Midwifery Matters, ISSUE 135, Winter 2012)

This scenario was slightly different, but maternal movement was again helpful. Jane Evans, a midwife with many years of breech experience, writes and talks about how her understanding of the physiology of breech birth has been informed by listening to and close observation of women (Evans 2012a, Evans 2012b).

Listen to women. Listen to midwives. Share your stories. Share your skills.

Feel free to share your own stories in the comments below. Community support for breech professionals is available via a Breech Birth Network Facebook group.

References

Michel, S. C., Rake, A., Treiber, K., Seifert, B., Chaoui, R., Huch, R., . . . Kubik-Huch, R. A. (2002). MR obstetric pelvimetry: effect of birthing position on pelvic bony dimensions. AJR Am J Roentgenol, 179(4), 1063-1067. doi: 10.2214/ajr.

Anne Frye’s Holistic Midwifery: A Comprehensive Textbook for Midwives in Homebirth Practice, Vol II is now available to download as a PDF, you lucky ducks! My father still complains about having to transport the heavy tome across London on the underground when he brought it to me from America one Christmas.

A letter to birth workers who want to help

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Antenatal teachers, group leaders, doulas, complementary therapists:

If you and women you work with aren’t happy with the support in your area … If you don’t feel you can tell women breech birth is an option because you don’t know if there is anyone who is able to help them … find out!

If you have a Consultant Midwife, start there. Otherwise, phone the Labour Ward Manager and/or speak with a Supervisor of Midwives (you can be put in touch with one by anyone who answers the phone). Liaise with your Maternity Services Liaison Committee. Ask questions. Find out what is done, and what could be done, for a woman interested in the option of vaginal breech birth.

There are many, many midwives out there despondent that they cannot use or develop skills to support normal breech birth. And many women who do not know how to get in contact with midwives who would be willing to support them if they asked.

One of the biggest challenges facing maternity care today is lack of continuity. Inspirational independent midwives like Mary Cronk and Jane Evans were able to develop relationships with women. Women were able to find them, trust them, and birth safely with them.

Today, most of us work in a culture which has normalised anonymous, short-lived and superficial relationships in most areas — being “nice” is not the same as being “known.” How are women to find the midwives who want it to be different? We need birth workers who are willing to help us build bridges, help link together professionals and women with common purpose. Who are the midwives (and doctors) in your area that women will find most helpful in this situation? The more experience professionals get, the more confident they will feel to inspire change within the system.

Be the change. Keep asking questions. Know that although the culture makes professionals seem distant, midwives need and want connection as much as women do, and birth workers can often do a lot to help make these connections.

Mechanisms of upright breech birth

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Understanding the physiological process of a breech birth

The following pictures show the way a breech baby wiggles her way through a mother’s pelvis when mum is upright (e.g. kneeling or hands/knees), and the signs a breech birth attendant looks for to tell if this process needs help or not. 

Engaging LSA

Engaging LSA

 A breech baby may engage before labour, or may not engage until after her mother’s cervix is fully dilated.

Some midwives feel engagement with the back on one side or another may be ideal. (See Jane Evans‘s ideas on this, on Rixa Freeze’s blog.)

I am happy for the back to be on either side, and these pictures depict the birth of a baby whose legs are extended (frank breech), with her back on her mother’s left.

 

Descending LST, anterior buttock leading

Descending LST, anterior buttock leading

The breech typically descends with the sacrum transverse, anterior buttock leading. On vaginal examination, this will feel asynclitic – the anal cleft is closest to the maternal sacrum. This is normal for breech.

Maternal movement assists this process in the same way it assists cephalic descent.

The buttocks will be born by lateral spinal flexion (wiggling the bum from side to side).

 

Anterior buttock rumping

Anterior buttock rumping

 

The anterior (maternal front) buttock is born first, followed by the baby’s anus (usually squirting a thick glob of meconium) and the posterior buttock.

The sacrum will soon rotate to sacro-anterior (‘tum to bum’ – the baby’s rear should be in line with the mother’s front). If rotation is tending toward sacro-posterior, this may be an indication for intervention (to gently encourage sacro-anterior rotation).

 

Birth of the extended fetal legs

Birth of the extended fetal legs

Baby’s legs seem to stretch forever, but will be born spontaneously. If there is ‘good descent,’ this will happen with the next big push after the pelvis is born. If there has been any indication of fetal compromise (eg. heart rate abnormalities), assist the legs gently by pushing the knees in towards the abdomen.

If one leg slips down before the other, this may indicate that full internal rotation has not occurred, and help with the arms may be needed.

 

“If it progresses, wait and see.” – Mary Cronk

 

Birth of the umbilicus

Birth of the umbilicus

After baby’s legs flop down, you will have a clear view of the umbilicus and may even be able to see the baby’s heart rate from her chest. Do not touch the umbilicus, but observe: colour, tone, flexion/movement.

Reassuring sign: If you observe cleavage (the sternal crease) on the baby’s chest, you know the arms are in front and should be born with the next contraction or active maternal effort between contractions. If not, you need to help.

Indication for intervention: If full rotation has not occurred by the time the nipple line is visible, or progress stops for >30 seconds at any point, you will need to assist with the birth of the arms.

Rotation to drop the anterior arm below the pubic arch

Rotation to drop the anterior arm below the pubic arch

 

In most breech births, the arms will be born spontaneously with the baby’s torso in a sacrum-anterior position (‘tum to bum’).

Occasionally, as the head engages, baby rotates slightly to release one arm below the pubic arch, then rotates the other direction to release the other arm.

 

 

Birth of the fetal arms

Birth of the fetal arms

 

 

Baby should be ‘tum to bum’ following the birth of the arms, and the head should be aligned in the pelvis in an occipit-anterior position.

 

 

Unflexed head obstructed in pelvis

Unflexed head obstructed in pelvis

 

 

A well-flexed head will pass easily through the pelvis.

Commonly, women experience an urge to lower their bottoms to the surface on which they are kneeling (e.g. bed, floor mat, etc.) This maintains and promotes flexion in the baby’s body and should not be interrupted.

 

 

Flexed head passing through pelvis

Flexed head passing through pelvis

 

Babies have often been observed doing a ‘tummy crunch,’ or full body flexion recoil, spontaneously pulling their knees up into a fetal position. This also promotes flexion and helps the head to be born.

Note: A compromised baby will not do this, and you will need to assist more, and sooner.

If progress arrests – no descent with maternal effort – help to flex the head is indicated, especially if baby’s tone and colour are not ideal.

 

Want to learn more?

More on Mechanisms from this blog.

Excellent sources of information:

Evans, Jane. (2012). Understanding physiological breech birth. Essentially MIDIRS, 3(2), 17-21.

Evans, Jane. (2012). The final piece of the breech birth jigsaw? Essentially MIDIRS, 3(3), 46-49.

Frye, Anne. (2004). Holistic Midwifery, Volume II, Care of the Mother and Baby from the onset of Labour through the First Hours after Birth. Labrys Press. (available here)

Reitter A, Halliday A and Walker 2 (2020) Practical insight into upright breech birth from birth videos: a structured analysis. Birth. doi.org/10.1111/birt.12480