It is important that after each session you try to feel how the baby is lying. Ask your doctor or midwife to teach you what to feel for. A head is round and hard, a bottom is round and soft. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell the two apart, but with concentration and practise, many women find they can tell how their baby is lying. It is still good to have any suspected change in position confirmed by a midwife or doctor, so that if the baby does turn, you can then stop your turning routine and change to the “Assisting Engagement” practices (see below, page 191).

Other Elements Involved in a Breech
   Some people believe that breech presentation might be a way through which the baby attracts attention to itself from its mother. They suggest that the child requires reassurance and greater intimacy during the pregnancy. Some midwives and childbirth educators attest that through visualisation and an increase in loving attention, such babies can be successfully turned. I would agree that every gestating child should have as much of its mother’s attention as is possible throughout pregnancy, and that if a child is well looked after in terms of diet, exercise, love and internal awareness, there will be no need for it to draw attention to itself by such radical means! Regular asanas, pranayamas, Yoga Nidra, Om Chanting and kirtan, are the best yoga tools for achieving this. So again, early prevention is the best solution to discounting such possibilities of possibly creating a breech presentation.
   One should also remember that each baby has its own in-built karma and idiosyncratic birthing journey. As much as a mother may try to influence her pregnancy, some babies just have their own agenda which may influence the way they will be born. That is why internal listening with the higher mind (meditation), always brings greater harmony between mother and baby, and a greater acceptance and understanding of the unknown and unexpected outcomes of mother nature.

Approaching a Breech Birth
   In the event that the baby cannot be induced to turn before the onset of labour, the mother must prepare herself mentally for the challenges a breech birth may present. It is not simply that a breech birth may be more painful or difficult for the mother, but that the model of care offered to her can suddenly be very limited.
   If you have a private obstetrician he / she may wish to take no chances at all and automatically implement a
 

caesarean at a time of his choosing. If planning to use a Birth Centre, breech presentation is a definite criterion for your exclusion. If you are a public patient, planning to give birth in a standard labour ward, you may well be allowed to commence a normal labour towards the vagina. However, at the first sign of any maternal difficulty or foetal distress, the approach will be typically conservative, and a caesarean may be imposed upon you. If a homebirth is planned, the attending midwife may or may not feel confident to handle such a birth, and so you may find yourself suddenly making other plans at short notice.
   Only about 4% of all births are breech presen-tation at the onset of labour. Of these, about 50% are successfully born vaginally. This does not mean that the other 50% were emergencies, or that they all necessarily required their eventual caesarean delivery. More likely, is that most of these were elective caesareans brought about on the advice of a cautious and litigation-fearful medical orthodoxy.
   In most cases, a midwife or doctor who are experienced with breech deliveries can manipulate the baby to come out quite safely, but in a few rare cases there may be danger of cord prolapse and birth trauma due to slow delivery of the head after the body is born. Such risks can definitely be reduced if a woman remains calm throughout the birth. It is also known that the worst scenario for breech birth is for the woman to be passive and / or drugged. Her full consciousness and participation are required for the best outcome. She must also have full trust in her birth attendants (be they doctor or midwife), so that during the stress and energy of birthing, she is able to be guided by those people – in combination with her own best instincts, of course.
   Therefore, birthing difficulties or caesarean delivery for breech presentation do not have to be an inevitability. If you want to try for a vaginal breech birth you will have to be resourceful and find a birthing practitioner who is willing to support you in this aim. Unfortunately caesarean section is all too often portrayed as the ”safe option”. But remember, such surgery has risks too for both mother and baby. In fact, on the whole, obstetricians are undecided about which has the greater risk, vaginal breech or caesarean.
   As a final point, it is interesting to note that homebirth breech births usually have very good outcomes. This is possibly because such women are highly motivated, with a high faith factor in their homebirth midwife. It may also have to do with the fact that they are allowed to relax, encouraged to participate fully, and to just take their time.