"What's your research?"

It would be nice to have some research on all of the Spinning Babies recommendations and posted techniques. I can't wait to address the needs of birthing women until someone does the research on the Spinning Babies approach to childbirth. I can only be non-interventive and request that women work openly with their doctors and midwives about the techniques on this site. We'd all be being born out of glass jars before each of these techniques are thoroughly researched.  The Spinning Babies approach is active, holistic, anecdotal, and grassroots.

 

Some of these techniques may have been studied, its true. And I don't hold that against them. Its just that they may not have been used in the studies in the manner in which I present them. That will make the study findings less than useful to our purposes. One example of that is the Karaminia's study on pelvic rocking in the hands and knees position, see article in this section.

If you are a medical researcher, doctor, student or midwife with an interest in doing research to advance Optimal Fetal Positioning, Maternal Positioning, and/or any of the Spinning Babies Principles or recommendations, please, please contact me. Let's discuss something that is doable within the constraints of your study parameters.

I'd love to have the forward-leaning inversion compared to "usual management." I'd love to see if teaching parents Belly Mapping first before a late pregnancy ultrasound increases their accuracy (or just awareness!) of their babies' position. What about the pelvic floor release and its effect on birth outcomes for asynclitic babies? What about that ROT baby and the route of rotation in comparison with the LOT baby? And just what is the frequency of starting labor with an ROT or OP fetal positions compared to LOT or LOA/OA baby these days? How frequent are ROA babies among first time mothers? These are answers I'd like to know! What do you want to study? Please message me on my Facebook or send me an email.

People are asking,

"What is the comparative accuracy rate between the kick, bulge, and movement techniques of [Belly Mapping], the palpations of a doc or midwife, and an ultrasound?"

My reply, sadly, is, no one has done a study on Belly Mapping's comparative accuracy to either palpation by an experienced provider or an ultrasound. This is something I've discussed briefly with a couple of medical students and nurses who have contacted me with an interest in Spinning Babies' potential research topics. However, until I can actually work with a group who are actually able to conduct the research we won't know.

Meanwhile, a provider's skill in palpation varies widely, as do womens' bodies (thickness, tension, amniotic fluid levels, placental location, etc.). These would be the variables effecting efficiency of palpation which would complicate such an analysis.
Several studies show that physician examination of fetal sutures is from 40-60% accurate when compared to ultrasound. We've also seen that ultrasound is not 100% either, due to images that are hard to interpret (as Lieberman discusses in her 2005 study) or due to inconsistency in human interpretation of an "underwater" ultrasound image (as I've noted through observation).

Come aboard. Plan a research study with me. I've been using some of these techniques for 20 years or so. We can find one that fits your study needs. And, they're fun!

 

"Gail,
I was hoping you could help me out... a CNM who saw one of my clients and told her not to do inversions because it could cause the baby to become breech. I would like to educate her, the CNM, on the benefits of spinning babies techniques. Have any studies been done that I could reference? Any help that you could offer would be greatly appreciated!"

My reply is that the CNM has palpated this mother's abdomen. Perhaps she has polyhydramnios, far too much amniotic fluid, a history of an unstable lie (the baby goes from head down to breech to head down again easily), or a very loose muscle tone even with normal amniotic fluid.

These are reasonable areas of concern to avoid an inversion, though not necessarily absolute reasons. They'd be reasons to leave the decision making between the care provider and her experienced Myofascial worker/Chiropractor. 

A normal pregnant woman with a head down baby who does the forward-leaning inversion for 30-seconds a time is not likely to flip her baby to breech.

The breech tilt is not the same inversion as a forward-leaning inversion. Its done longer and on the mother's back. The breech tilt has the purpose of helping the baby's chin to tuck. The forward-leaning inversion has the purpose of stretching the cervical ligaments and then, after the inversion, the ligaments relax. Repetition of the forward-leaning inversion is to release a twist in the lower uterine segment, improving the angle of the fetal head or allowing the breech baby to find room for the head. I've been recommending this for years and following many pregnant women through their pregnancies with the forward-leaning inversion. I haven't observed nor have I been told of a baby who's flipped breech.

A different inversion done incorrectly- A woman on the east coast was told by a student of mine (and a nurse at this woman's clinic) to do the Open-knee chest for 20 minutes in pregnancy to help her posterior baby rotate. The next day she came into the hospital in labor and was sectioned for a breech fetal position!!! First of all, the Open-knee chest position is not to be used for posterior presentation unless -in labor- the baby's head is jammed in the pelvis and there is no progress with strong contractions, or as a comfort for back labor in the presence of contractions.  Contractions keep the head down. Its always good to go back over the instructions before recommending a new technique that you may not be fully familiar with.