The Power of Suggestion in Birthing

Does anyone else believe in the power of suggestion?


Not necessarily hypnosis (that’s a whole ‘nother post…), but simple words uttered without a care that get stuck in your brain and circle around and around until you find yourself thinking them as well. I certainly had this with my son.


I knew before I got pregnant that I would have a big baby. My husband is 6 foot 5 inches and solidly built. Me – I’m only 5 foot 2 inches – we won’t talk about my build. I had no worries about having a big baby. I firmly believe that my body (and others’ bodies) will only grow a baby it is able to birth. I believed this before I got pregnant, I believed it during my pregnancy, I believe it now.


So what happened?


I always had a fear of C-sections. A fear that I would have one, not because I wasn’t strong enough or woman enough for a vaginal or anything like that, but that something would happen beyond my control that would force me into a C-section. I did what I could during pregnancy to avoid a C-section: eating well, educating myself, birth plans, planning to wait to go to the hospital, etc. At my anatomy ultrasound, I looked at my chart (as I carried it to check-out. It’s my chart and I have a right to know what they don’t think I’m smart enough to understand), and I found that I had an anterior placenta and that my son was breech. At nineteen/twenty weeks, I had no worry about the breech issue; he had plenty of time to turn. The anterior placenta worried me slightly – what if we needed to do an external version?


I think here that too much education got the best of me.


I’m not saying this would happen to everyone, that you should avoid being educated or anything like that. However, I know myself. I let things get worked in, and worked in well, until they burrow into my soul and consume my thoughts before I fall asleep or when I first wake up.


I’m not sorry that I knew these things. I’m sorry that I let them get the best of me.


By thirty weeks, I could tell he had settled into position. I was huge, but I felt great, and I could feel his outline through my belly. He was going to be big.

At thirty-two weeks, I consented to a growth ultrasound. Due to my clotting history, I was at higher risk for IUGR (inter-uterine growth restriction), but I knew I was not having a small baby. I wanted to peek to see if he was still breech – hey thirty-two weeks is plenty of time – and to ease any worries my doctor might have had.


He was still breech. I was devastated. I thought for sure he was head-down, that what I was feeling on the left side of my rib cage pushing that lowest rib was his bony little butt or knees or something, anything other than his head. It was his head. He was frank breech.


I threw myself into getting him to turn. I drank orange juice and put my butt in the air. I rocked on my hands and knees, over a birthing ball. I played music down low – he kicked the speakers. I swam. I walked. I had chiropractic massage and the Webster technique three times a week, nearly passing out each time due to the weight of my uterus pressing down as I lay on my back.


All the while, I was constantly things from others. “He’s too big to turn.” “C-sections aren’t that bad. Why are you so worried?” “My cousin’s friend’s mom’s sister’s baby was breech. He stayed that way.”


At thirty-seven weeks, he was still breech. We scheduled an external version – against my doctor’s advice. I was given a 10-15% chance of success – first time mom, low to average fluid, and anterior placenta. It didn’t work.


He was stubborn. I have that lowest left rib out of place and a nasty C-section scar to prove it.


I think that truly I let that first breech reading and those words get the best of me.


Yes, it’s certainly possible that he would have been breech anyway. I honestly feel he was meant to be breech. Maybe he needed that position for whatever reason. Maybe I needed that experience to better serve doula and childbirth education clients.


But I still feel I let it get the best of me. There at the end, I felt totally resigned to having a C-section. I knew in the back of my mind that he still had a chance to turn, even during labor, but I schedule a C-section anyway. I knew that I had a chance of a vaginal breech birth with a different care provider, but I didn’t even bother to look around. I scheduled that C-section, two days before my due date.

“He was just too big to turn,” I told myself. “He got too big too soon. If only I had seen it earlier.”


But that’s probably just a lie that I told myself. So what if he was big. There are other big babies, bigger than mine, that don’t get stuck breech. Breech babies that do turn during labor, if given the chance. Breech babies born vaginally.


Next time, I aim to counter those suggestions more often. Practice my hypnosis (again, whole ‘nother post!) more vigilantly, talk out those suggestions, surround myself with more natural birthers, change practitioners, whatever I need to do.


I need to protect the suggestions that get in so the only ones that circle and circle my brain this time are the ones that say, “I trust birth.” “Birth is a natural and safe experience, for me and my baby.”