To try labor if baby is anterior

I’ve been contacted by a woman in southern Europe who is trying to decide if she should travel to a place where she can labor and give birth or to stay in her city and accept a cesarean without labor. What a position this mother finds herself in! What a dilemma!

Should she put her family into the stress of having her leave their hometown? Will her mate have to leave his work to be able to be at the birth of his child? Who will bring her food and supplements when she is so far away? Where are the women of her community? Will she obtain a vaginal birth at the cost of community support? What gapping hole in society leaves women in this state of childbearing.

Her process of decision making has brought up the question of whether she should try labor if her baby is anterior, but go ahead and accept a cesarean if her baby is posterior.

She has been following her baby’s position with Belly Mapping and using some of the techniques in Spinning Babies. She describes her baby as changing from LOP to ROT, and wonders if now at 36 weeks she should book her cesarean.

I have a strong response….

Are you indicating, am I reading you correctly, that you wouldn’t try for a natural birth unless your baby is LOT? or LOA? (Click here to see baby positions.)
My goodness, any labor is more likely to progress into a vaginal birth than not, especially if the baby engages by labor. If you do nothing but allow labor to begin and proceed, you are likely to give birth, Paulina!

Help the baby engage by hula hooping on a birth ball or the Walcher’s position to bring the baby down. Engagement is more important than OA or OP. Try and help the baby to the left with hands on the right before trying to get the baby to engage. Naturally your baby would engage between 38-39 weeks.

• Are you doing the Inversion as shown on the little video on my site? Use that one, not the other methods. This relaxes the lower uterine segment.
• Did you get your sacrum adjusted? This will help the baby rotate now to a left occiput transverse (left occiput lateral) position.
• A sacrum release by a myofascial person will also help there be more room in the back area of the pelvis.
• An abdominal release and a round ligament release helps the baby rotate before engagement.

These are the body work things that really seem to make the difference. Oh yes, a pelvic floor release. That last seems to help with any position of baby so the baby can drop. Do that after you do the previous a couple times each. Or do the pelvic floor release in labor. For sure.

Then use an active birth approach to labor. Vertical positions, leaning forward, drug free, eating freely, drinking water and an occasional electrolyte drink, these things, and patience, will help you if you do have a labor longer than average. Don’t time yourself, just keep up on food and fluids and emptying your bladder. Love your mate and your helpers and let that love be felt in the room. Have some fun with your adventure. Don’t measure it and judge it like it is a fire that could get out of hand. It is a flower opening. Pour a little water on it and get in the sun, or in other words, a nurturing environment.

Think carefully if you would give up on your child’s birth. This choice will last generations. You may have a need for a cesarean, but nothing you have shared with me shows that you do at this time, or likely will. Labor improves the hormonal function of you and your child.

I probably sound a bit forceful. It is just a response to finding a woman in your position. I believe you that your community birth environment has got you to this point.
Let me say that I believe in you, in the design of birth within us both, and in your ability to give birth to your little one.

There is a community of birthing women who can become your community, too.