[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqHzxf-RzRE”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Is your baby in a posterior position? There are heaps of terms to explain this such as back to back or OP or occiput posterior, posterior position, posterior baby or ‘in a bad position’. A posterior position has stimulated a whole industry to ‘spin your baby’, ‘optimal foetal position’ or ‘turn your baby’ or ‘use the rebozo’. Women have become frightened about posterior births. Sometimes they are associated with back labor or longer labors. What should you make of all of this?
Until the 1980s no one had any concern about posterior babies. Why? Because 99% of posterior babies naturally turn either before labor, during dilation of the cervix or during birth. Very, very few babies come out with the baby facing ‘sunny side up’. But there’s more complexity. The position your baby is in may not impact where you feel labor pains. And long labors may not be associated with the position of your baby but whether you have tension inside your pelvis or the size of your baby is big relative to the inside of your body. Where does this leave you?
Manage Back labor
Making this all simple … back labor is caused by your baby pressing on the nerves that run down your spine and through the bone at the end of your spine (your sacrum). This can be caused by a number of situations, one of which is a posterior position. Here are some examples:
- A baby’s head is slightly tilted to one side but the baby’s back is to the mother’s tummy.
- A baby can have a hand up by the side of the face.
- A baby’s head can be quite big even though it’s not a particularly big baby.
- A woman might have a misaligned pelvis.
Unfortunately, if you do experience back labor the discomfort of contractions often lasts during the space between contractions. For anyone who has experienced uterine sensations during contractions, we know the pain can be very, very intense but the pain goes away between contractions and we can rest. When we have back labor then the pain can be more nagging and continue through the space between. This is exhausting and frustrating. However, not every woman who has uterine pain during contractions likes the pain and not every woman who has back labor has a long birth.
Skills to manage back labor
You can spend lots of time trying to turn your baby, spinning babies but also learn the skills to birth your baby no matter what position he/she is in. In other words, if your baby turns you might still end up with back labor and if your baby doesn’t turn and you do have back labor then skills will help you move your baby down through and out your pelvis with more knowledge and ability. Doesn’t that make sense?
Presently the skill fathers-to-be are taught in their childbirth preparation classes or childbirth books to press on the sacrum to reduce the discomfort of back labor. Does that make common sense to close the space your baby needs? No, it doesn’t.
Instead, you need to learn to open your pelvis and create mobility in your sacrum so you can help your baby move down and through your bony pelvis. This is where Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation Online Course comes into play. First, all the skills were developed by ordinary mothers and fathers like yourself. That means you are going to have a learning resource that has been developed by people who wanted to deal with issues such as nagging back labor.
Here are some of the Birthing Better skills:
- Hip Lift … creating space side-to-side
- Kate’s Cat … learning to keep your sacrum mobile
- Sit Bone Spread … relaxing the muscles that control the sacrum
- Sacral manoeuvre … creating space front-to-back
- Pelvic Clock … softening inside the pelvis.
- And these are just some of the Birthing Better skills to prepare your pregnant body to become a birthing body. Birthing Better online birth classes also gives you all the birth and birth-coaching skills to cope, manage, work through, deal with, handle, stay on top and in control of whatever sensations you feel during contractions.
But here’s the bottom line … no matter what happens to you or around you if you are skilled you can always work with your baby’s efforts to be born by learning how to open your body for this very big object.
Testimonials
‘Both of my babies were posterior although they both turned sometimes in labor. The first birth I just followed everyone’s suggestion and tried to turn my baby which didn’t. So I went into labor terrified, had back labor and demanded an epidural then had a forceps delivery. Birthing Better is what I used 2nd birth. This time I wasn’t terrified, knew what to do about the back labor and didn’t need pain relief.
That doesn’t mean it was EASY. It means I knew how to handle things.’
Iris A…
‘Birthing Better helped me understand that if my baby didn’t turn then I had skills to deal with the labor and I did. I don’t think posterior babies are a problem really’.
Cheryl Z …
‘We had to take preparing for birth seriously or we knew we’d be headed for medical interventions. Thanks to Birthing Better we had the BEST resource in the world to guide us’.
Ben and Patty W…
‘What hype about posterior presentations. It scares women half to death. So what if we have some back labor for hours. Get on with it. That’s what I say. But if you do it without skills, you’ll never do it. Birthing Better will show you exactly what you need to know. We took it all on.’
Marvin and Beth M…
Birthing Better skills were developed by moms and dads in the early 1970s in the US and used by many thousands globally in all types of birth. Birthing Better online birthing classes are housed in Common Knowledge Trust.
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