Spinning Babies^® is an approach based on easing baby’s rotation. When rotation is easier for baby, birth is often easier for mother.The pelvis has three levels and each level may differ in where there is more space for baby’s head. Babies change position in labor to fit the pelvis. To make position changes easier for baby, we include muscle lengthening (toning not strengthening), body balancing, and increasing the measurements of each diameter of the pelvis, when helping labor be easier is a goal. Spinning Babies^® develops a new paradigm for birth care for parents and for providers that is not cervix-centered or force-powered.

A midwife asked me if trying to influence the baby’s position wasn’t an intervention that is disturbing to the mother. Introducing mothers to the risks of posterior labor and the label of having a posterior fetus felt wrong to her. She said, “Let’s see what nature does.”

Now we know that 60% of first-time babies that are OP to start labor will change position before the end of labor. Several studies show that about 30% of the babies that were OP at the start of labor are OP at the end of labor.

Recent studies report about 8% of babies are OP at the time of delivery and not quite half of these are being born vaginally. The May 2005 Lieberman study showed 12% of babies from epidural births were OP at the end of labor compared to 3.3% of babies who were not exposed to epidurals. The OP labor may be long or short and, when born vaginally, the midwife can feel satisfied in her hands off approach–and so will I. However, the mother has one of the 30% of OP labors that need special help to finish she will move up the intervention ladder to Pitocin augmentation of labor (IV with medication to strengthen contractions), a vacuum or forceps delivery or major surgery. It is these mothers and babies that Spinning Babies^® is designed for.

The ideal, or optimal, fetal position is a flexed baby. We often hear that an optimal position is head down with baby’s back to your front or left. That’s because these are the most common positions associated with good spine flexion. A good fetal position aims the baby’s crown onto the cervix to help it open more easily and labor progress smoothly.

When babies start labor with the back of the head towards mother’s anterior (front) less rotation has to happen. A baby facing forward (posterior) or head up (breech) may present a challenge, or not. Spinning Babies^® trains providers to discern why and when we need to intervene or when its fine to wait and trust.

A “malpositioned” baby is one that can’t enter the pelvis; lying sideways (transverse lie) or diagonally (oblique lie), or one that doesn’t fit as well because the chin is up.

Spinning Babies^® helps baby get into position for birth and helps support a normal, even natural, childbirth.

Sometimes we accept there is a time to intervene in a particular birth. Cesareans are a life saver; but should not be a lifestyle. Major surgery has its own set of risks, including injury and even death. Most cesareans are safe today, but involve anesthesia, incisions, blood loss, and too often, infection. Many births are now managed with cesarean surgery even before labor begins!

Some labors do need to finish with a surgical birth, but most don’t. There are benefits to the birth process in the mind and hormones of mother and child. Please give labor a chance. A baby gets more preparation for breathing and living in air if labor was part of the journey, even when a cesarean was, too.

Together, we can reduce the tide of surgical birth and return birth to the mother’s own abilities.

Wondering if the search for physiologic birth is worth it? Project yourself to a year from now, will you be able to reflect that you did everything you could to be aware, to grow, and to become the mother you hoped to be? Take the time to learn. Fetal Positioning and body balancing are rather new concepts, so don’t expect a doula, nurse, or even your doctor or midwife to tell you “all you need to know.”

The most important thing is love.

Around 24 weeks is the best time to start the Spinning Babies® Parent Class.