Hannah's positive breech birth - elective caesarean

when hannah discovered her baby was breech, she navigated through some difficult decisions with her partner jack and had a positive planned caesarean

Zoe, I have to thank you so much for your amazing hypnobirthing course.

Although I didn’t have the wonderfully natural hypnobirth I had hoped the hypnobirthing practice itself was something I thoroughly enjoyed doing with Jack.

I used it during my ECV, to make the decisions about the birth of our daughter, during my caesarean and probably the most invaluably now when Beatrix is unsettled I try to stay calm and focusing on my breathing and it generally calms her down.

My birth story is still a positive one so thank you Zoe for playing such an integral part in it. 

Here is my birth story…

From week 34 we found out our baby was breech. This changed everything. Suddenly from having a very low risk pregnancy, practising hypnobirthing every night and visualising the natural birth of our beautiful baby my dreams were turned upside down (literally)!

However, there was a phrase you said that really stuck with me and that was ‘baby knows best’ this really helped in the rest of my pregnancy. 

I did try everything to try to ‘flip the baby’ - standing on my head (knees on a sofa), lots of child's pose etc. We even tried an ECV, where, incidentally, the hypnobirthing breathing really came into its own. I breathed through the whole thing with a smile on my face.

The consultant nearly managed to turn the baby but she slipped at the last minute. Again, ‘baby knows best’ came to mind. She was clearly comfortable where she was and didn’t want to be moved. 

This meant we needed to make a decision. It is recommended if a baby is above a certain size and if they are not in the optimum position, (with bum down and legs up) to have an elective caesarean. The statistic that stuck with me was that 40% of breech births end up in emergency caesarean. I used BRAINS to weigh up both options. (BRAIN stands for Benefits, Risks, Alternatives, Instincts, Nothing and Smile and it is a really helpful way to make informed decisions about your care).

Even though I had done so much preparation for the birth of our baby, including perineal massage (just in case the baby flipped), and actually felt excited about a natural birth, too many things were weighing against us (including that she was a big baby).

After weighing everything up, for us, sticking to my ‘birth plan’ really wasn’t ever the point of the birth. The point was to get the baby into the world as safely as possible. For us, that was going to be an elective caesarean.

Hannah’s Positive Affirmations

I kept up with the hypnobirthing - I just switched to a caesarean visualisation. Once I had got my head around everything. I planned a woman centred caesarean, as much as the hospital would accommodate - with skin on skin straight away, delayed cord clamping, our music, talking kept to a minimum etc. 

We went into the hospital at 7.30am on 13th January, I couldn’t eat anything that morning - this was the hardest part!

We were told we were going to be going second, even though on the phone I was told we would be first as the hospital had already rescheduled the date.

Jack was shocked when I asserted myself with this information and were moved to going first. Unfortunately, there was an emergency caesarean just before we were meant to go in so we had to wait quite a while. We were finally called in at around 1.30pm.

We walked around, Jack had to pop a silly hat on that didn’t quite fit his head and obviously had to wear a mask for the whole thing.

I didn’t really take it all in but looking back it was a bit strange walking into a sterile, brightly lit room with quite a few people to give birth to my baby when I had envisaged a low lit room water birth. However, that was the last thing on my mind.

The staff were all amazing, it helped that the Registrar was the same lady that had attempted my ECV and felt very familiar. 

Jack was wonderful as always, he put ‘Lionness’ on the speakers - the incredible track made for the Hypnobirthing Place that I had used throughout my hypnobirthing practice.  

First things first was the spinal block. The anaesthetists had to do this twice as I had a tingling sensation in my left glute and down my leg. Second time lucky. I was then laid down and Jack and I had a chat with the anaesthetist while waiting for my body from the chest down to go numb!

I did get the side effect of shaking which made it a little harder to stick to my hypnobirth breathing but I just had to focus a little more.

After I went numb, they started the birth of my baby, I breathed through, listening to Lionness, looking at Jack, eagerly anticipating our baby being put into my arms.

There was a lot of tugging going on then suddenly the drape was lowered and our baby girl was on my chest. I was overcome with emotion.

She lay on my chest as I was being stitched up - not that I thought about that one bit. Little Beatrix Betty Horlick was born at 14.01 on 13th January 2021.

All the staff for the cesarean were amazing and really helpful, they certainly made us feel like we were in safe hands.She was perfect. I was wheeled back to the room we were in before and tried to breastfeed Bea. It was a little tricky as I was hooked up to drips etc but she did manage to latch. It was all a bit of a blur but I had my baby in my arms and I could finally eat something and have a cup of tea! Heaven!

The support from you Zoe was completely invaluable. Thank you again.