(re-published here with permission from Dr. Jay Warren)
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Last week, I heard a soon-to-be mother say to me something horrible: “Oh no, I wish I’d known about this sooner – now it’s too late!”
The woman was 37 1/2 weeks pregnant with her first child. Her baby was stuck in a transverse lie and while the baby was moving arms and legs plenty, he just wasn’t moving into the head down position for a normal delivery. She had tried many different things over the last few weeks to help the baby move: visualization, yoga, acupuncture… even upside-down handstands in the pool. All to no avail.
It wasn’t until further internet searching that she learned of the Webster Technique but by this time, she had already had an external version performed (a painful, invasive technique of trying to manually move the baby through the mom’s belly) and the cesarean section had been scheduled for the next day.
What was so horrible about this situation was not that she’s having a c-section. It wasn’t that all the time and energy she put into natural childbirth classes was possibly wasted. It wasn’t that I know she will have a tougher time recovering from the surgery on top of learning to be a new mom. I know the mom and baby will ultimately be just fine.
What’s horrible about this situation was that she didn’t know. She didn’t know about the Webster Technique until it was too late.
I take responsibility for that.
And that’s what this article is all about. By putting this information up here, it is my hope that two things come of it:
1) that a pregnant woman with a breech baby searching for information finds this sooner rather than later and they can get help before they have to have a surgical delivery.
2) that all pregnant women find this early on in their pregnancy and get quality care before a transverse lie or breech presentation is ever a problem.
I will list tons of resources for you to learn more about it at the end of this article, but quite simply, the Webster Technique is a gentle chiropractic adjusting method that reduces pelvic tension in a pregnant woman. It’s this pelvic tension that commonly prevents the developing baby to move sufficiently within the uterus. “The Webster Technique” is a gentle, non-invasive technique that is completely safe for pregnant women that I can use all the way up to the time of delivery if necessary.
You can watch me explain more about the Webster Technique in this video here.
The best chances of allowing the baby the space to move into proper position in late term pregnancies occur when we have the time to do at least 6-8 adjustments in a 2-3 week period. The ideal scenario is when I am able to take care of a mother-to-be throughout the whole pregnancy on a wellness basis and the baby just turns head down at the beginning of the last trimester as nature intended.
Too many times I have received calls from pregnant moms that are only a few days away from a scheduled c-section. In my experience, only about half of those babies turned (because by that time, the baby is pretty big relative to the size of the uterus). Whereas all of the moms I have been able to take care of throughout their entire pregnancy had normal head down presentation at the time of their delivery.
So if you are reading this and have further questions after exploring the articles below, please feel free to contact me so I can help you in some way – either by seeing me (if you are near San Diego, CA) or by me helping you find someone close to where you live.
If you’re searching for information for a loved one that has a breech presentation, forward this on to them and have them contact me directly as well.
I want to help the delivery to be as easy and wonderful as nature intended it for both mom and baby.
The Webster Technique: A Technique for Pregnant Women
The Webster Technique Case Study to Avoid C-Section