Is this baby breech?
The only sure way to know is to have a sonogram (ultrasound). Even particularly awesome and experienced caregivers make mistakes when they feel your belly (called palpation). It is notoriously difficult to tell the difference between a head and a butt. Luckily it’s much easier when the baby is out.
If you think your baby has flipped, try to confirm, and then spend 20-60 min/day outside walking briskly to help the baby settle head down.Palpate your belly yourself. You may be able to get a clue about baby’s position by feeling your baby through your belly. Lay down and feel around the top of your belly. If you feel a kind of ball, get it between your hands and see if it wobbles. This is the head. If when you press gently on it, you feel full movement that presses on your lower belly, it’s more likely a butt. Learn many more details about doing this fun activity for yourself from Gail Tully’s excellent Spinning Babies Workbook.
Here are some things to watch out for that may mean your baby is breech:
- It feels like something hard is up under your ribs.
- You feel the strongest movements/kicks low in your belly, sometimes feels like baby is trying to kick through your cervix. Or make a treadmill of your bladder. (footling, incomplete breech)
- You have less movement than you did with other babies (if you’ve been pregnant before).
