Heads Up

As I was enjoying some downtime last week, both of my clients who had seen me in the run up to my holiday because their babies were head up (breech), left me a message to say that the babies had turned.

One of the babies turned within twenty-four hours of our session (we know because the breech clinic appointment was the next day) and the other baby was head down a week after the session, also at a breech clinic appointment. Hard to say when the second baby turned for sure but mum did a' bottoms up day’. 

Here’s her message:

The session I recommend for breech babies is a 90-minute massage and stretch session. With a breech baby the session is very busy. There’s a lot of work to do. You’ll have me hold you in supported stretches, we do pelvic balancing activities and I massage your respiratory diaphragm just beneath your ribcage with an essential oil blend that contains essential rose oil. It’s an oil that a German aromatherapy midwife recommends for when a baby is breech and it smells delicious.

During the session you learn how you can use deep breathing to activate and mobilise your diaphragm muscle so that any tension that you might be holding there can be released. Releasing and balancing your respiratory and pelvic diaphragms lays the foundation for the work you’ll be doing at home. You’ll get a detailed follow up email with follow along videos for your daily activities. You decide on a day that you’ll devote to helping your baby flip. The beauty is that all of those practices are fabulous for preparing your body for giving birth, so I usually suggest to keep going with most of them until baby is born. 

The massage and stretch sessions can also be adapted for late pregnancy, too. These are deeply relaxing aromatherapy sessions. We press some acupressure points and pick essential oils that can help you pass the threshold if you are on the cusp of labour.

I am always conscious about letting you know that breech is not a pathology. It is not really a problem, there’s nothing wrong with you or your baby. Your mind is more powerful than you might think and, as I understand the body-mind-connection, focusing on the idea that there is something wrong interferes with your body’s ability to function optimally. Affirming that your body is always working perfectly, even if you are experiencing a symptom, is the route to resolution and healing. When a baby is breech, I invite the parents to speak to the baby and let the baby know that they trust the baby to know best. The mum works on making space for the baby to align perfectly and the baby decides if turning is the best thing to do. 

I have three reasons for offering sessions aimed at helping you with getting your baby to turn head down:

1. Body balancing activities will be beneficial regardless of whether baby flips around or how you give birth to your baby and generally my clients tell me that they feel so much better after their 90-minute session with me. 

2. Finding support for a vaginal breech birth can be challenging. Currently there is only one trust in Northern Ireland (maybe two) where you will be well supported if you want to have a physiological breech birth. A breech home birth will be very difficult to advocate for so getting your baby to flip will help you get your home birth without any hiccups.

3. There seems to be a lot of fear among mothers about going for an external cephalic version (having your baby turned heads down by a doctor). I always talk parents through what an appointment like this might look like. Often parents feel a lot calmer about taking advantage of the appointment. Ultimately you can say no at any time and I always suggest to go and hear what the doctors are offering. It also gives you an opportunity to explore vaginal breech birth as an option and to get clear on what you want to do.

Sometimes I wonder if babies remain breech to stay close to your heart. Does the vibration of LOVE radiate from the heart? If so, wouldn’t it be possible that the baby wants to stay heart to heart for as long as possible?

Just a thought.

Speaking of love; Last week with Gerald, Lena and my friends reminded me about the power of feeling loved and of feeling held. I didn’t really expect it, but there were times during my birthday weekend when I felt absolutely overwhelmed with how much love i received.

My daughter gave me the most precious gift.

A CD that with fifty (+) songs on it. She said in her card that when she thinks of me she thinks of music. ‘Thank you’, she said, for providing me with a ‘soundtrack to my life’. 

It is true! There’s always music in our house, always! And music is important to me, it’s how I relate to people, even my baby.

We listened to Lena’s soundtrack in the car as we travelled around Northern Ireland with my friends. The Mournes, Murlough Bay and all the way to The Dark Hedges and Ballintoy Harbour in one day! A stormy one, too! I have never seen the North Atlantic Ocean at Ballintoy Harbour as wild. A reminder, once more, of our mortality and our humility before the order of things.

I got gifted a homemade birthday cake, an amazingly delicious birthday breakfast, homemade wheaten bread, the best ever T-shirt, some wine from home (one of my friends is a winemaker!), delicious carrot cake, a b b gun, targets and pellets (because Gerald knows me so well), my new favourite blanket (so soft) and a bar of soap handmade by another friend back in Germany. Most importantly I got gifted with presence!

How happy can one person be? Thank you to everyone who made it such a special time for me. Celebrating your birthday, and allowing other people to celebrate you, is much more enjoyable than I remembered. 

As this blog post is released, I am spending the weekend in Dublin to top off the most precious week. It worked beautifully because just today I visited a beautiful mama to be not far from my favourite Hotel in the city. You could call it luck, and I do feel lucky, but I know that this is how I have designed my life to be. All of it is exactly the life I am calling in for myself and the beauty is that the happier I am, the happier my loved ones are!

I am fifty years of age and full of love and gratitude.

Would you like to know more about how I can support you in your pregnancy?

Send me an email to [email protected].