With anywhere from two to six weeks left in your pregnancy, it’s now much easier to feel where baby rests inside you — and there’s more to it than simply head-down or breech. Midwife Gail Tully, the founder of Spinning Babies®, created Belly Mapping® to empower pregnant parents and doulas to figure out baby’s position in the womb and to do something about it if needed.
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If you haven’t already, take a couple evenings to tune into your baby’s kicks and wiggles. You will notice more details of baby’s movements when you’re *semi-sitting and breathing deeply and slowly. Mark your baby’s kicks and wiggles as indicated on this free Belly Mapping® download. This will help you map baby’s body parts to understand their position. Learn more about how to do Belly Mapping in the Activity of the Week below.
Belly Mapping® helps you learn whether your baby is head-down, head-up, or sideways. If head-down, it helps clarify the details of an anterior position (facing your back — an ideal starting point for birth) or a posterior position (facing your front — may need some help rotating).
If your baby is posterior, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll have a difficult labor. Some posterior babies will need help getting born, while others are born more easily. If your baby is posterior, begin now with body balancing activities (or keep them up), including the Forward-leaning Inversion. Abdominal Lifts and Lunges also help encourage rotation for different levels of the pelvis, as explained in the Spinning Babies® Parent Class video download.
If baby is breech, Spinning Babies® offers a series of suggested activities to create space for baby to get themselves head-down. We’ve compiled this advice in an easy-to-follow, 6-day program in our Helping Your Breech Baby Turn eBook. Ask your provider if there is any medical reason not to go upside-down in an inversion, such as high blood pressure or risk of stroke. Many babies will have turned head down in two weeks. Other babies will need professional help, and a few won’t turn, even with these activities. These activities can help to create space for babies to turn.
After Spinning Babies® activities, when you suspect baby may have changed position, take a long walk. Use Belly Mapping® to get a sense of how baby’s position feels now, and check when you suspect a change. Enjoy stroking your belly and your baby. You may notice a variety of feelings — surprise to have heard your baby was breech; worry if you wanted a straightforward head-down birth; hope that baby turns. Allow yourself to feel what you feel.
