“If your baby remains in the breech position, we will have no option but to do a C-section.”

These are words no mother anticipating a natural birth wants to hear.

Hearing your baby hasn’t turned into the anterior position (the back of his head slightly towards the front of your tummy) isn’t the end of the world, nor does it mean you have to have a Cesarean.

Hypnosis is clinically proven to be an effective means for turning baby into the right position. A study conducted in 1992 by Dr. Mehl-Madrona , University of Vermont Medical School, showed clinical hypnosis to be highly effective, if not the most effective means to get babies heading in the right direction for birth.

The study included 100 women, with a control group of 100 women who did not receive hypnosis. All women were carrying their babies breech beyond week 36.  The study group of Mothers, while in hypnosis, were led through guided imagery to bring them into a deep relaxation. They were asked to visualize their babies easily turning and then visualize their babies in the correct vertex position. Mothers visualized the uterus becoming soft and pliable to allow the baby sufficient room to re-position. In addition, the Mothers were asked to talk to their baby, and the therapist encouraged the baby to release itself from the position and to turn itself downward for birth.

At the conclusion of the study 81% of the breech babies with the hypnotherapy turning spontaneously from breech to vertex presentation as opposed to only 26% babies who turned spontaneously without hypnotherapy.

When designing the study, researchers allocated 10 hours of hypnosis for each participant to achieve the desired results. Half of the successful 81 turns required only one session. The average number of hours for the remaining women was four and a half hours to achieve a successful turn.

As a clinical hypnotherapist, I can use hypnosis to turn breech babies. HypnoBirthing offers a specific script for breech presentations. I encourage all pregnant moms, whether or not they are using HypnoBirthing, to schedule a series of hypnosis appointments before they go for an external cephalic version (EVC).

An EVC is done at a hospital where doctors will be able to closely monitor the baby for fetal distress while they manipulate the abdomen externally. If the baby does not respond on the first attempt, a second attempt may be done using an epidural to help you relax and to reduce the pain you experience with the procedure.

When the turning of the breech baby is achieved through hypnosis, the baby usually remains in the vertex position, while babies turned through ECV sometimes go back to the breech position.

Hypnosis to turn a breech baby is a viable alternative to an ECV procedure. The rate of success in turning babies is high, no pain in using the technique, and no drugs administered, except the endorphins your body produces while experiencing the wonderful state of hypnosis.

If your baby is breech, hypnosis offers a pain free, drug free alternative to external cephalic version. I use a standard three session protocol and suggest that mothers schedule their session at the end of the 36th week if the baby is not yet head down.