Thanks to Taryn from Australia for sharing this lovely breech story, including a journey with hip dysplasia. Taryn had two breech babies in a row, and both had dysplasia. Breech babies (especially frank breech) are at higher risk for this complication.
When my obstetrician told me at 37 weeks that she had ‘pencilled me in’ to extract my breech baby by caesarean the following week, I was devastated. Alongside what was best for the baby, it seemed convenience was high on the agenda. Due around Christmas day, she justified her decision to me based on ensuring that I was home for Christmas, babe in arms. And, of course, we would avoid the risk of going into labour on Christmas day, interrupting her plans. We left it at pencilled in and she told me to go home and discuss it with my husband.
When I called her the next day I expected a fight. But to her credit, she agreed to let me wait until after my due date and the public holidays had passed, and scheduled my caesarean for 40 weeks and 2 days. I spent the next three weeks trying to get my baby to turn.
But my baby and I were comfortable as we were. I felt like I could have happily continued being pregnant for months longer. I had come to accept that some babies are breech for a reason.
My obstetrician had briefed me on the increased risk of developmental dysplasia of the hip for breech babies, and the paediatrician was talking about it as I was wheeled towards theatre.
From the theatre table, I looked on to the paediatrician examining my new baby on a
table nearby. His Apgar score was 9. Then I watched as he twisted my baby boy’s hips outward and could see them clunking in the loose joint like breaking the drumstick leg off of a roast chicken.
The next day our little boy was put into a hip splint to help set his joints correctly. This required working closely with a physiotherapist, and over the next few weeks it became evident that our child’s body was tightly tucked in, and needed some help to unravel. We gently exercised him and encouraged his arms and legs, hands and feet to straighten out. The doctors referred to it as a ‘packaging’ issue, and we jokingly called him our Ikea baby.
It started to make sense. He had been tucked up like that a long time in utero, and probably hadn’t created enough movement to spin himself head down.
For a while I felt the stigma of opting for an elective caesarean. All the reading I had done shouted ‘Don’t believe what they tell you – you can deliver vaginally’, and celebrated women who had defied the system and successfully fought for and had natural deliveries. Nobody wanted to tell the world that they had chosen to have a caesarean.
Here in Australia, where statistics for caesareans are on the rise, the label given to elective caesarean patients is ‘Too posh to push’. But despite the attitude of my obstetrician, (who didn’t offer to try to turn the baby nor the option of a vaginal delivery anyway), it was not a matter of convenience or vanity for me. I trusted my instinct that my baby was breech for a reason, and that the reason might mean that labour and a vaginal delivery may not be a good option for my baby.
Less than two years later – I was back in the same position, literally. I spent the first trimesters of my new pregnancy preparing excitedly for labouring. But I knew where I was feeling kicks, and that hard bump under my ribs was unmistakably a head.
This time I had a wonderful obstetrician who was willing for me to try a vaginal breech VBAC, (though he advised against an ECV after caesarean). He presented all the statistics, and invited me to make my own informed decision, without any judgement either way.
Despite yearning for that opportunity to labour and deliver a child naturally, I knew that I did not need to prove to anyone that I could do it.
In a sweet win, my waters broke four days before my scheduled delivery date. So I did get to experience a few hours of the reality of labouring. It was the middle of the night, we had to drop my son off at a friend’s house. My bags weren’t packed properly, and I smiled every time I felt a gentle contraction pull across my tummy.
My baby was delivered safely by caesarean, and the entire experience was beautiful. I felt peaceful and calm. As the baby was lifted feet first from my belly, we discovered we had a little girl. The midwife commented that it is a funny way to meet a baby – with the head and face not emerging until last. That is just one of the unique joys of the breech baby.
Here is another – I was wearing my baby in a wrap yesterday, and reached down, as I had just weeks ago, to feel the kicks – down near my pelvis on the left, and up under my ribs on the right. Then I realised the baby was on the outside. I could actually touch those toes. It made sense. She had been tucked up like that a long time in utero.
What a perfect way to be.
