Balanced Information
  1. [The breech specialist midwife] supported me to make an informed choice. Nothing was sort of pushed on me. She gave me all the information and I was then able to make that decision knowing what I knew. And I was really clear with her that I wanted to know the potential risk … and she didn’t sugar coat anything. She told me exactly what those potential risks could have been, but then also what the benefits could have been as well. (W100-B-VBB)
  2. Like from the beginning of meeting [the breech specialist midwife], she knew her stuff, it just felt like, Ok, I actually trust this person even more so than I did the consultants who were going OK, maybe we should give you this. Maybe you should just go for a C-section. And I remember talking with my partner and I remember saying to him like, this woman Niamh, she’s gonna, she’s telling me everything straight as it is. She’s not going, You should go this way or this way. (W101-B-VBB)
  3. And then after the ECV, [the breech specialist midwife] then also, like, answered all my husband’s questions and like gave him all the information. So I think we were, like, really, really supported in the information that we that we needed to kind of make an informed decision about what we were doing, as opposed to just being kind of like scared into a scheduled Caesarean. (W103-A-VBB)
  4. You know, [booking hospital] were pushing so hard for me to do the ECV and to have the baby in the labour ward. And it just didn’t flow, so my doula, she passed me the details of [the breech specialist midwife]. And we had a chat and she was the best thing that happened. Oh my gosh. I was like finally a person that talks my language and understands exactly what I want to do. And she really supported me so I transferred. (W104-B-EMCS)
  5. So [the breech specialist midwife] actually was very supportive. And she wasn’t like, oh pro natural birth. No, she would just literally provided me all options to choose from and gave me a wide information like where, which is available online, that I can look at myself. She answered all my questions. What can be the problems. These statistics for nationwide, the statistics towards like how they appeal to me. So, to be honest, it was a very, very nice, and I felt very informed. (W105-A-EMCS)
  6. [In the breech clinic,] I never felt like I was being pushed to do anything. I think it was – their aim was to support me to make the decision that’s best for me and my baby. And to be informed in that. And I think they did that really well … Knowledgeable practitioners. Definitely. Them taking into account your views and your opinions, as well as keeping kind of safety as the priority. And just time. I never felt rushed. I never, ever felt rushed to make a decision, to get out of the appointment, to – none of those things. I was always given enough time to ask my seven million questions and to fully understand what was being, you know, what was being said before we then made any decisions. So time’s massively important. (W106, C, EMCS)
  7. So the midwife said to me, You just let me know what you want to do, if you want to go for vaginal, we’ll support you, if you want to have a C section, then we’ll support that as well. So we decided to go for a vaginal delivery and – but if I ever got to 41 weeks, because of the risks associated with that, I wanted to have a C-section if I got to 41 weeks. So, I think I must have called [the breech specialist midwife] the next day or emailed her and said that’s what we want to do. So she said, OK, that’s great, we’ll get you booked-in for your pre-op care in preparation for the C-section if it comes to that. (W107-D-EMCS)
  8. Yeah, they gave me the first the option to do this procedure [ECV], I don’t remember the name, too, but I read about it, and I wasn’t convinced. I didn’t like it was too aggressive for the baby. And I said, no. I want to try other things. I was trying in the hospital I received this thing that you burned [moxibustion], I don’t remember the name and I tried with some position, but anything that I tried, the baby is still in breech. So one day I went to the doctor. The doctor told me about the C Section. I said that I didn’t want it, and she told me that the breech birth was very risky and she wanted to talk to me again because she tried to convince me that C section was better. (W110-A-FBB)
  9. So I wanted as natural a birth as possible, I didn’t really want many pain killers. Ideally, it would have been in the birthing unit. Maybe in the pool or something, I just wanted to do as much as I could myself. And then when I found out that baby was breech. So there was one scan that we went to … It was maybe 35 weeks, and the sonographer said, Oh, the chances are you’ll have to have a caesarean, and I don’t really, it kind of stuck in my head, but I was a bit like other people have said I might be able to have a natural birth. So, you know, I was told different things. And then I still planned to have a natural birth if I could, but I didn’t know if that would be an option. (W111-C-VBB)
  10. Yeah, they, Janet, the breech specialist midwife, you know, that was always nice, you know. They explain slowly what was going on, you know, they said – no, no, they clearly explain what is what. So we can’t complain for that, you know, so we know what’s that. We come back home … we saw the film [about ECV and breech birth], like a – from A to Z, so we know what’s what. (W113-A-ELCS)
  11. He was very much steering towards having a caesarean, and it almost felt like he just wanted to do it because it would be the easy option, and it will be done straight away. And he said, If you have a caesarean now, you’ll be home tomorrow there’ll be no problems … So I just said I can have a little while to think about it and talk about the risks and the benefits, and he basically said, Well, I’ll be taking you down within the hour to have your caesarean and here’s the form. Can you sign it when you’re ready? And it was as if I was given no option. (W111-C-VBB)
  12. And after he performed that very painful ECV, he like, it wasn’t an opinion, it was like a very strong advice that it will be easier and better for me and for the baby to have C-section which actually caused me and my partner having a bit of confrontation. (W105-A-EMCS)
  13. I mean, so I always knew it was an option. I’m trained as a midwife and doula as well. So I know people that have had breech births, but I also had never seen a breech birth myself and knew that there weren’t many care providers that would kind of be happy to support a breech birth. So it was really only – I mean we were really feeling about 36 or 37 weeks that we didn’t really have any options, just because all of – the local hospital was really like, we can offer you an ECV, if it doesn’t work, then C-section. Yeah it kind of felt very non-negotiable. (W112-C-VBB)
  14. There was one thing that made me quite upset, it was in one of these scans. The person was doing this scan actually – In fact, I hadn’t had the scan yet, the baby had been breeched previously in the previous scan and I was going to a new one. And I was going through the door and I said hello, and she said, Hello, so we are going to have a C section then? And then made me quite upset in the first place because she was inferring that, supposing that my baby would still be breeched, what could be or not, she didn’t know about that. We just would know after the scan. And secondly, I didn’t like the tone of obligation that she gave to me that, Okay, if it’s breeched to have you need to have a C section. I wanted to have more choices and I wanted to choose, I didn’t want someone else to choose for me, I wanted to make my own decisions there, so that was a point that I felt quite upset about it. But I had a conversation [with a consultant midwife] about the birthing choices, and then it went much better after that. (W114-A-EMCS)
  15. And it was a bit of a battle for me to actually get any information around the statistics and the information around it. So I really had to kind of ask for the lead obstetrician there to come in and actually talk to me and be like, what are the pros and cons of doing an ECV? (W108-B-VBB)
  16. Okay, so it was actually not their first choice when I was admitted to hospital. I’d been in there for about an hour, and the doctor came up to me and said, We’re going to take you down for a caesarean because your baby’s breech. So it wasn’t even as soon as I went into hospital, it wasn’t mentioned that I could have a natural birth at all. It was straight away, No your baby’s breech, you’re having a caesarean. Because he was early anyway, it was all a bit of a shock. (W111-C-VBB)
  17. I think for me it was, I think the NHS needs to have, like, when, like, a lot of the time I refer to the NHS websites for everything. And I think maybe having an article in there saying that it is possible for a plan breech birth, but you need to discuss this with your midwife and actually ask for it because then they can help you provide information. Because I don’t think, as is right now on their like, website that they have anything about planned breech birth. You know, they just say usually you do get a C-section. And I think having just even one little sentence to say that it is actually possible, that would open the mind and it would get more people like thinking, Ok is this a possibility? And then, you know, having, being able to talk to a midwife that can then refer you. (W101-B-VBB)
  18. As soon as I found out the baby was breech, immediately it became apparent that, you know, home birth wasn’t an option, and then it was, Oh, you know, maybe birthing in a birthing centre wasn’t kind of ideal. And then it was going straight onto like, well, caesarean. So it very quickly became what I didn’t want … if you look at all the information leaflets they give you, they always give you the relative risk, they never give you the absolute risk. So if I say to you, like – I may have got this quite wrong, but like, Oh, breech birth at home triples your risk of infant mortality, you’re going to want to vomit. You’re going to panic. But if I tell you that the numbers are one in 1000 for cephalic births and two in 1000 for breech births, or whatever. You’re like, Oh, well, actually, the sample size is 1000. Yes, you may be doubling it, but the absolute risk is still less than 0.01% or less than a percent. Right? So what I have noticed is the way you present information is so important because you’re talking about risk. There’s a variable factor there, people have different appetites for risk taking, right? (W108-B-VBB)
  19. And I was like, oh my god, and we were trying to find information online but it is anecdotal evidence, there is nothing, you know – it’s quite hard to find information about it and all you hear when you talk about breeched babies is C-sections. (W104-B-EMCS)
  20. I’m trying to say … it was laborious. It was incredibly stressful. I was fortunate enough to be working from home. The company that I work for also, you know, no pressure was on me. So I was able to take maternity a few weeks earlier than I was intending to take it. And I had a lot of support and I had a doula, so I had someone dedicated there helping me find information. But I can see how other mums just maybe wouldn’t know where to go. (W108-B-VBB)
  21. [The breech specialist midwife] just talked me through what would happen in certain scenarios. Because I was really worried of, for example, the baby’s head getting stuck, and she talked me through what she would do in that situation if it was going to happen. But the risk of it happening was very, very low. So it was – yeah, just the fact that she was so nice and caring and calm about it. And she seemed confident in her ability, so – and her experience. So that made me feel confident. (W107-D-EMCS)
  22. I understood exactly how the birth should go, as a breech birth, that it kind of has to go to plan. And if it doesn’t go to plan, then they start looking at a C-section quite, sort of, quicker than you perhaps would with a head down baby. And I completely understood that and I was, yeah, willing to give it a try, and try and get a natural birth if I could. (W102-B-EMCS)
  23. She was very transparent about what she had and hadn’t done. And she was very clear. And the rest of the team were very clear that they had done the kind of training days, like the OptiBreech physiological breech birth training day. But they haven’t actually seen a breech birth themselves and so, yeah, definitely in the breech team there was a lot of confidence. (W112-C-VBB)
  24. It’s very annoying for me because it happens, exactly the very thing that they told me that it would happen, the entrapment of their head. And I said, I don’t care the risks I think that is better. But I didn’t know that it could happen to me, you know? (W110-A-FBB)