The Cheeky Breech

At my last midwifes appointment she measured me at almost one month behind in fundal height. This raised a little concern over baby’s development so before I knew it I was sat in the ultrasound waiting room of Gloucester general hospital with my mum, desperately hoping that traffic would permit Creag to be there on time for our growth scan. With just one minute to spare I heard his hurried feet clumping around the corner like an uncoordinated elephant cub and suddenly I felt very relieved to know he was going to be there.

A little nervous, I lay back as the technician smothered my modest bump in gloopy cold jelly. She slid the wand back and forth and Creag and I nervously waited. She took several measurements and ran the numbers through a machine and told us “your baby is spot on, you won’t need another growth scan, its perfect size. Estimated 3lb 10oz at the moment” we were so relieved to hear this great news. She then added “did you know your little one is breech?” this came as a big surprise to us as the midwives had been guessing it was head down due to the position of babies kicks. I suddenly felt a bit guilty, that lump by my ribs I had been patting and calling a chubby little bottom was our little munchkins head. Oops!

We were reassured that breech is not a concern until 37 weeks but of course it’s preferable that they are head down. So the second I got back I was harassing google for answers on how to turn a frank breech baby which is a baby that is basically bent in half, feet up by its head bum by the exit.

To my delight I saw that because babies like music if you play music down low the baby may move to hear it better if you position headphones where you want the head to go. I have already witnessed that when I play my harp the baby moves towards the side that the harp is resting on. As I have been playing the baby its lullaby on the harp regularly I have now observed that if my posture is lazy the point of contact the harp has to the belly is at the top of my belly I think that possibly I have been unknowingly coaxing it upwards encouraging a breech position. I am now a lot more aware of my posture while playing and hope that by both playing the harp and playing music through strategically placed headphones I can use music to coax baby down to the head down position in the next few weeks.