Can the Forward-leaning Inversion cause placental abruption?

There are complications that come up in pregnancy, and when a rare complication arises it is human nature to look to the unusual events or actions done. The unusual seems logically linked to the unusual, but what is unusual in our awareness may not be the only variable occurring. In the decade we’ve had the Forward-leaning Inversion online, this is the first conversation regarding someone doing the FLI each day that has experienced a partial abruption.

The incident: A woman pregnant with her sixth baby went rapidly down off a high bed without support present (the bed was the kind you use stairs to get on). Her separated abdominal muscles didn’t protect her anterior placenta as her hands hit the floor with an “oomph.” Doing it this way *and this late in pregnancy* is not the recommendation for FLI. We recommend support for the first few times, both going down and coming back up to the kneeling position.

In the hour afterward, she had vaginal bleeding and went to the hospital.  Bleeding ceased and she stayed in the hospital for observation. She gave birth ten days later with no further bleeding in pregnancy.

Our advice is not to begin the Forward-leaning Inversion alone in late pregnancy and to go slowly.

Was it the Forward-leaning Inversion?

My questions for a situation where there was bleeding after an FLI, would be:

• Was bleeding immediate? Was there bleeding within the hour? Or the day?
• Was there a short or tangled cord? (Dropping down to the floor hard could tug the placenta in this hypothetical case.)
• Was there hypertensive disorder, certain drug risks, or other risks of abruption involved?

We can find out if there were other variables with such questions.

By itself, as a lone variable, the Forward-leaning Inversion is not known, nor suspected to be, associated with abruption.

Do providers have more information about any adverse events doing inversions? What were other variables? We certainly want to know more on this topic.