Getting baby ready for birth

Getting baby ready for birth

Chiropractors say technique helps put babies in best position for delivery

By Michelle Magnan, Calgary HeraldNovember 19, 2008

Chiropractor Judy Forrester performs the Webster Technique on patient Leslie Baker at the Synergea Family Health Centre in Calgary. The technique is designed to encourage breech babies to move into the correct, head-down position before birth.

Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider, Calgary Herald

http://www.canada.com/news/Getting+baby+ready+birth/973242/story.html


Leslie Baker's baby wasn't sitting right in her belly. Thirty-two weeks into her pregnancy, she discovered her baby was in the breech position during a routine checkup with her midwife.

"I flew into a bit of a panic," says the 37-year-old Calgary mother of two young kids. Breech babies, with their buttocks or feet heading into the birth canal first, can lead to caesarean section deliveries. Baker did not want to go that route.

"After two home births, the last thing I was planning on doing was having a hospital C-section," she says.

Baker's midwife suggested the Webster Technique, a chiropractic adjustment created specifically for women with breech babies. Larry Webster, the now-deceased chiropractor for whom it is named, created the technique. In 1986, Webster founded the Philadelphia-based International Chiropractic Pediatric Association (ICPA), the organization that trains and certifies chiropractors in the technique.

What's it all about?

"The Webster Technique is a specific chiropractic analysis and adjustment that enhances nerve system function, balances pelvic muscles and ligaments, which decreases torsion to the woman's uterus," says Jeanne Ohm, the executive co-ordinator of the ICPA. "This, in turn, reduces the potential of intra-uterine constraint and allows the baby to get into the best possible position for birth."

In other words, the chiropractor does not attempt to turn the baby. Rather, he or she will "adjust" the mother to help the baby turn itself. Ohm says the optimal time for the technique is at 32 weeks into the pregnancy and on.

While some people have reservations about seeing chiropractors, Baker is not one of them -- she's seen one regularly since her first pregnancy, when she had her back and hips adjusted -- but she'd never heard of the Webster Technique.

She arranged an appointment with Judy Forrester, a chiropractor who specializes in pre-natal and pediatric care at Calgary's Synergea Family Health Centre. She is one of only a handful of chiropractors in Calgary certified by the ICPA to perform the technique. (Only 19 chiropractors are certified in Alberta. To find them, check out icpa4kids.org).

"It is not a breech-turning technique," stresses Forrester. "People loosely say that it would rival an ECV (External Cephalic Version)," referring to when a doctor applies pressure manually to a pregnant abdomen to physically turn a baby in the womb.

"(The Webster Technique) is designed to enhance the bony joint and soft tissue that supports the environment to encourage the baby to turn itself."

After only one $75 appointment with Forrester (subsequent visits are $25), Baker had a pleasant surprise.

"Dr. Judy mentioned I would notice more fetal movement later in the day, which I did. I went to sleep. I woke up in the morning and thought, 'Oh, I think the baby's turned.' It was that simple," she says.

A checkup two days later confirmed Baker's baby had turned itself into the correct, head-down position.

Forrester says babies often turn after one visit, but the average is two to four treatments. "It becomes easier and more effective if they've already had a baby," she says.

Baker knows first-time moms might be concerned about trying the technique, but she says they shouldn't worry. "There are so many things in pregnancy that are uncomfortable or scary," says Baker, "and this was so simple and pain-free."

When I watch Forrester simulate the technique on Baker, it looks simple enough. After a couple routine chiropractic adjustments with Baker on her front and side, Baker lies on her back. Forrester uses her thumb to apply steady pressure to a single point on the side of Baker's exposed pregnant belly, near her hip bone. She pushes her thumb in deep -- a point at which many husbands and boyfriends who are watching tend to get nervous, she says -- and holds it there.

When Baker received the treatment, Forrester held the pressure point for three to four minutes, and that was all it took. (Forrester says she once held her thumb in the same spot for 45 minutes to treat another patient.) She keeps the pressure on until she feels the tension release in the broad ligament that surrounds the uterus.

Does the technique hurt?

Forrester says it's much less painful than an ECV. "Most women come out of (an ECV) feeling that they've been in a boxing match."

Baker says it did not hurt at all. "It was not painful, not invasive."

She says it feels like when a masseuse is applying pressure to a single spot, and the muscle relaxes. "This is nothing. It's like coming and having your back done."

But is it really that simple?

Dr. Colin Birch, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at Foothills Hospital, says there's more to it.

"We don't encourage or discourage chiropractic interventions. If they can facilitate something, that's great," he says.

However, that neutral stance does come with a word of caution.

"I don't think a chiropractor should touch a pregnant woman's belly at 37 weeks, which is when we do an ECV normally," he says. "At 37 weeks, they have to be careful, because there are risks involved."

Forrester says Birch would be right to say there would be concern if there were heavy pressure on the pregnant abdomen, but that's not the case. She says the pressure used in an ECV is about 300 times greater than what she applies.

"The pressure I use is not on the baby. It is on the outside of the uterus, on the ligament that lines it, and there are tons of amniotic fluid to cushion the baby."

While the Webster technique is designed for women in their 32nd week and on, Forrester and Ohm say it can also be used throughout pregnancy to prevent the baby going into the breech position.

That, says Birch, is somewhat pointless.

"Half of all babies are breech at 30 weeks. However, by the time you get to full term, three per cent are breech," says Birch. "If they're doing this technique at 30 weeks, it's a bit of a sham really, because most babies are going to turn on their own anyway."

The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC) doesn't have an official opinion to

offer pregnant women on the matter. According to Mike Haymes, a communications and public education contact at the organization, the Webster Technique falls outside the society's scope. The organization has not looked at it closely enough to comment on its effectiveness.

To Baker, it doesn't matter what anyone says now. She would recommend the technique to friends, adding that Forrester "saved her bacon." Her baby is sitting in the right position, and she has no regrets. Now 34 weeks into her pregnancy, she's gearing up for her home delivery.

"I was thrilled," she says with a smile. "I was thrilled to discover that something so simple, so painless and so inexpensive could have such a dramatic effect on the outcome of this birth."

mmagnan@theherald.canwest.com

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

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