Trainee has a surprise breech birth

My name is Catherine and I went through your breech training, including hands-on training with Whitney Pinger this summer. What a great experience and learning opportunity.

I was pregnant throughout this past year while I was going through the training. I was doing some prenatal consults with a local midwife who was also trained through Breech without Borders (she has taken your online course as well as attended multiple in person trainings).

My plan was for an unassisted birth at home. We had palpated at my prenatal appointments and at 36 weeks, we were certain she was head down, LOA. That was my last appointment before the birth. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, I recall an evening where baby was particularly active in the womb, and then upon palpation and listening with the fetoscope, I was pretty certain that she had switched to an ROA position.

Fast forward, I went into labor at about 41 weeks. After 2 days of labor, the second day being particularly intense especially in my back, I decided to do an "open knee chest" position on the bed thinking maybe baby was posterior and this would help give room for rotation. As soon as I did that, my waters broke, and I knew baby would come soon.

What happened next was quite a surprise. I was on hands and knees, and I saw the signature "toothpaste" like meconium coming out. I knew immediately (thanks to my training) that baby was breech. I quickly assessed that my husband and sister who were with me would not be well equipped to do any maneuvers if they were needed, if baby was compromised upon emergence. So we called the midwife, and she came right over. 

Baby came frank breech, and tone looked good as she began to emerge, but then she began to lose a bit of tone and vigor. The midwife was very calm and collected, she was completely hands-off until the very end where she did a chest/shoulder press very successfully to help baby emerge. We gave her a few breaths and she came into her body quickly.

I mainly write this to you, to let you know that the work you are doing with Breech Without Borders has far reaching positive effects. There are just about 0 OBs and midwives in CT that are trained and have skills with physiological vaginal breech birth. If I had known ahead of time (I opted out of all ultrasounds) that baby was breech, and if I had been receiving care from a local hospital OB or most midwives in this state, they would have insisted I need a C-section. But thank God both myself and the midwife I was working with took your course and training, to at least be familiar enough to feel comfortable in proceeding with a vaginal physiologic birth. 

And to top it off, all of the friends and family members that I have been able to share that I had an at home, vaginal physiologic breech birth SAFELY with a great outcome, is icing on the cake. They are now opened up to the possibility that this even can exist, in a society where they all had assumed that breech equals dire emergency C section at all cost.

Thank you, sincerely, for the work you do. My daughter, Anastasia Rose, thanks you too <3

Catherine