Hi, I'm Deb Flaschenberg. I'm the founder and director here at the Prenatal Yoga Center and I'm also a certified Lamaze teacher and labor support doula and mother of two. So what I want to talk about today was optimal fetal position.
So first let's just talk about what is optimal fetal position. So that is basically, so here's my little baby and here's my pelvis and it is having the baby in what we call the ideal position for birth. We want to make sure that the baby's chin is tucked in and the occiput, the back of the baby, baby's head is anterior towards the front of the mama's pelvis.
So here's our pelvis and here we have the front. Then you have the pubic bone here and it's called the as is the anterior superior ear like spines and in the back we have the sacrum and the tailbone and the lumbar spine. So we don't want baby against mom's back.
So the optimal position is for the chin of the baby to be tucked in, the occiput to be towards mom's left side. So I'm going to mirror you since you're watching this. and this would be the left side. And that would be called LOA, left occiput anterior. Then there's OA, occiput anterior, and ROA, right occiput anterior.
So the other side of that would be posterior. So that means the occiput is towards mom's sacrum. So here we are, bone on bone, and that is really uncomfortable for the mom.
So the hard part of this situation for when the baby is OP is that if the baby's head doesn't dilate, the cervix as well. So basically think of the cervix as a turtleneck sweater. So that's what I've got going on here. Let's get that over the baby's head.
Okay, so when the baby's head is anterior, the back of the head, the plates can form like a cone. I'm sure we've all seen pictures of cone like babies. And that is going to push against the cervix.
The head's gonna mold and it's gonna keep pressing the cervix open. So as the uterus contracts, actually retracts, it pulls up, it pushes the baby. down and the back of the head molds and starts to open up the cervix.
Now the problem is when we have a posterior baby the forehead is facing forward and this doesn't mold so the forehead is pushing against the cervix and it often doesn't mold and open the cervix quite as well and 70% of OP babies turn out to be cesarean births. So what we want to do is set things up ahead of time that baby is in the optimal fetal position. position. So besides the head being down, which is super important, there are other things that could be causing non-optimal fetal position. So babies that are breech, for example, that's when either the buttocks, which would be a frank breech, or presenting first, or the feet would be a little footling breech, or a kneeling, which would be a complete breech, or sometimes they're like a little bit of a yogi sitting in there, which is not ideal.
So again, want the head facing down. So optimal fetal position is important. So in class, we do a whole bunch of things to try to keep baby so that the chin is tucked in and the spine is forward. So that's the importance of having optimal fetal position. So some things that we're gonna do in class, and we'll have other videos about this, would be making sure that the uterus is balanced.
So there's all these ligaments. There's the broad ligament, the round ligament, the utero-sacral ligament that keep the uterus balanced. So think about the uterus kind of like a big hot air balloon.
And we want to make sure that the uterus is balanced. We want it to be nice and round and balanced so the baby can start to find its way evenly through that hot air balloon into the position. If there's any twist or torque, if one of the ligaments are too tight, one of the muscles, the psoas muscles, or even the alignment of the pelvis is misaligned, maybe the sacrum is pushing forward, baby sometimes can get stuck. Either maybe the chin isn't tucked in evenly, that's called asynclitic, or baby's stuck. in that posterior position.
So it's really important to have baby in ocknall fetal position so the baby can birth easier. So we understand that we do a lot of things in class to try to keep the uterus balanced. So we want to work on internal rotation of the legs, we want to work on balancing the ligaments, we want to have even tone in the pelvic floor.
So for sometimes my students are feeling like they're having chronic sacroiliac pain, that's the two joints here on the side of the sacrum, I'm going to suggest that they do a lot of internal rotation, but if it continues, or if their baby is breached, or they're suspecting their baby is again stuck in the OP position and we can't get that baby to turn, then I suggest the mom goes to a chiropractor that's well versed in the Webster technique. And that's a technique that balances the ligaments and the uterus, it's called intrauterine constraint when the uterus isn't balanced. and help that baby find that ideal position. So I hope that explains a little bit about the position of the baby, why it's important, and give you a hint into how we can fix that. Again, we'll have another video specifically on yoga positions that can help get that baby in the perfect position.
So optimal fetal position for a better birth and a better experience, and happy birthing. Namaste.