A vaginal breech birth can be dangerous for the fetus therefore most breech births are delivered via c-section. To lower the chances of you needing a c-section birth, we recommend an external cephalic version.
If your baby is still in a breech position by week 37 of your pregnancy, your doctor or midwife may try to turn it to the vertex (head-down) position using external cephalic version (ECV). In the hands of an experienced doctor or midwife, ECV is a very safe procedure with a success rate of 60 to 70 percent.
In this procedure hands are placed on the mother's abdomen around the baby. The baby is moved up and away from the pelvis and gently turned in several steps from breech, to a sideways position, and finally to a head first presentation.
External cephalic version performed before term may decrease the rate of breech presentation compared to external cephalic version at term, but may increase the risk of preterm delivery. There is some evidence to support the use of tocolytic drugs in external cephalic version. Use of intravenous nitroglycerin has been proposed.
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