Friday, April 06, 2018

10 mechanisms of upright physiological breech birth

This short video shows 10 key mechanisms of a normal upright breech birth.

1. Buttocks/feet emerge sacrum-transverse
2. Body restitutes to sacrum-anterior as trunk is born
3. Legs release spontaneously
4. “Cleavage” indicates arms are not behind head
5. Baby does tummy crunches to bring down arms & flex head
6. Arms release spontaneously
7. Full perineum = head is flexed
8. Head releases spontaneously
9. Baby passed to mother
10. Cord left intact even if resuscitation is needed

When these mechanisms are present, there's no need to do anything other than catch the baby. Approximately 70% of upright breech births will occur spontaneously with no need for any hands-on maneuvers. See Louwen 2017 for more information.



The original footage is taken from a longer video of a Brazilian couple whose planned homebirth ended up at a hospital due to breech presentation. I wrote about it several months ago here.

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