Posterior babies - it can be done

OK girls this post is to help reduce your concerns about giving birth to a posterior baby.
I was working night shift last night when a woman came to the hospital 1am in labour. This was her second baby and after feeling her tummy I could tell that the baby was posterior (direct OP). At 1:15am she decided that she would get under the shower to help with the pain. At 1:30am she said that she needed to push and wanted to get on the bed. At 1:38am she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, had a couple of grazes but no stitches. Baby was breastfeeding 20 mins later. :clap:
So just to reassure you all you can give birth to a posterior baby, yes sometimes the labour can be a little more painful but you can do it.

OMG Im sooooo jealous! I had a posterior bub too, but that labour didnt end so pleasantly ;)

Keep up with the positive birth stories :D

I had a posterior baby too, and while the labour wasnt too good, its all worth it in the end isnt it. Cant believe she birthed bub so quickly, well done!!!

How brilliant!! Thanks for sharing Alan.

I had a posterior bub too, and I think I was very lucky too. No intervention needed, just lots of determination managed to do the trick for me! Plus I'm tiny!- so I would definitely agree that it can be done :)

Both my girls were posterior, and I birthed both of them on my back, without any tears or medical intervention. It can definitely be done.

Hi Alan, I just tweaked the thread title a bit - I hope you don't mind? :)

I have had 2 OP babies during labour and yep, it sure isn't the easiest way to birth LOL. But defiantely doable if you are given the time to do it. And mine weren't small babies either.

Tweak all you want, I don't mind

With my 2nd ds he was posteriour and i didn't even know it! I walked around all day before he was born in pain each time i had a contraction and when i finally got to the hospi at 630pm he was still posteriour and i couldn't sit in a wheel chair properly! he was posteriour right up until my waters broke which is when he must of turned around. he was born just under 1hr after my waters broke!

I do have a question - while my mids were fantastic during labour they never really told me much (screw them, and thank goodness for BB, I say) but I assume they would have told me if he was posterior? I know he was born anterior, but I'm sure he didn't turn until about five minutes before he was born (I could be wrong obviously) I had Sterile Water Injections for backpain and for forty minutes I walked around as if I wasn't in labour anymore - I could barely feel the contractions anymore. Does that mean that the labour was posterior or not?

After my waters broke I could no longer sit, or lay down, even being on all fours was painful, I laboured the last seven hours standing up. I'm just curious. :doh:

Both of my younger 2 were posterior. Both labours were extremely painful in my back. With DS I was put over a bean bag & that relieved the pain instantly.
Unfortunately he was distressed to, so I had to turn over to be monitored. But it helped. Both labours were drug free! Well I demanded pethidine with DS, but it didn't kick in til after he was born.
I rocked on an exercise ball for 2 - 3 hours to turn DD2 around!

My younger brother was a posterior baby... Mum said labour was all in her back. I suppose what made it worse was that she had to labour on her back in stirups... poor women!! So I think we are much better off now-a-days and can active births :)

Ash - posterior labour is generally back labour, and you will know it. With both my labours, each contraction was all in my back, and I honestly thought my back was going to break. Both my girls turned as their heads crowned. I didn't realise this, the midwife told me as it was happening (as I was pushing mind you!).
With Nina, it was only that I asked that the midwife told me she was posterior. With Emily, the midwife told me as soon as I got to hospital, and she encouraged me to be in certain positions to try and turn her around. None of which worked mind you.

Does anyone know if you are more likely to have another posterior baby if you've had one already? Shape of the pelvis or something. It seems there are a few of you out there who have had more than one...

My DD was posterior and labour was not that bad at all....until the med staff decided I wasn't progressing (oh that's why the contractions weren't that bad!) and put in the syntocin...OUCH..the back pain was SOOOO bad...then I couldn't stand it any longer and went for pethidine and epidural....24 hours later DD was yanked out with forceps...my pelvic floor is kaput! Poor DDs head was a massive cone!

I didn't even know until my ob told me after DD was born that she'd been posterior - the pain level was about what I expected but it was the length of the labour, not the pain, that was the killer.

When people ask me if I had drugs, I say, "yes, after two and a half days with barely any sleep, the epidural looked like a mighty fine idea."

I'm surprised at the quickness of some of the posterior babies on here - I thought they were notoriously slow. As I said, the pain wasn't any worse than I'd expected, just the fact that it went on ... and on ... and on.

I too have birthed 2 posterior babies, drug free!!:D

One with an episiotomy and forcepts, (4hrs) and one naturally (2.5hrs). I was young with my first posterior, and wish I had BB back then!!:cryinglaugh:

Thanks for that Alan, I love hearing about it!!!:clap:

My first 3 babies were not posterior, but my 4th was and I knew nothing about it! I hadn't even read up on it as I just expected this labour to be like the rest, LOL, quick and easy.
I had pre-labour for 16 hours (I had never experienced pre-labour before, my other 3 labours were only 4 to 6 hours from 1st contraction), I then went to the hospital where they told me my baby was posterior and i was NOT dilated after 16 hours!!. I didn't really know what that meant (and they didn't really explain it too well) but anyway, they gave me a stretch and sweep and four hours later my little man was born, the second stage of labour (pushing) only lasted 9 minutes and Jack was straight on the boob and fed for an hour, he didn't even get weighed or cleaned up untill after he was fed, it was beautiful.

With my first posterior I had alot of pre labour, but i'm not too sure if it was prelabour. If it was then it only took about 3 hours to dialate 7 cm, but another 4 - 5 hours to go the last 3 cm.

With my 2nd it was 5 hours hard & fast.

I have a friend who gave birth to her 10lb posterior bub in 3 hours. No pain relief(other than a bit of gas), no stitches, no worries!!!
I had 2 posterior bubs not so happy to come out but lets not get into that.
The moral of the story is posterior labours are not always horror stories so don't be afraid, it can and does happen every day...

My 1st was posterior but none of the others were. She was forceps and episiotomy but the other 2 i didn't even tear.

I didn't have stitches with any of mine. I had a 1st degree tear with DD2. I dunno if it really was better to leave it or the ob left it more coz of my fear of them!
But with DS I didn't even graze.
Both posterior, & both SO different.

My bub was posterior. The back pain was pretty strong (umm really really strong) and I don't really remember any tummy pain through it. I was strapped to the bed for monitoring (bubs HR kept dipping cos of an induction) so didnt get to do a lot of the things I had planned. I got through it just with gas. Plus no stitches even with his hand up near his ear. So if a natural birth is what you want it can be done with a posterior bub.

Cookiemonster
Your midwives may not have told you that your baby was posterior. Back pain is a sign of a posterior baby so there is a good chance that your baby was posterior.

Sophia
As far as I know just because you had one posterior baby does not mean that you will have another one.

Sophia, my first two babies were anterior presentation, the second two were posterior. There is no rhyme or reason for it a lot of the time - most babies will turn during labour and some need to turn to start labour off. With my first posterior birth I had no idea till she was nearly crowning and the midwife commented that she still hadn't turned - she knew the position she was in but didn't tell me. Second time I knew it from the start.

You wont always get the back pain with them either, or if you have back pain it wont always mean a posterior baby either. I actually didn't have a lot of back pain with my OP babies, but being in positions favourable to OP presentation certainly made contractions easier to deal with.

I'm still not convinced that the size of my OP babies had anything to do with them being OP (they were 4.32 and 4.56kg), I think it was just one of those things.

My third bub was born posterior and with the cord around his neck, I did not know this till the midwife told me, even she was suprised, my labour was drug free 55 minute, no stiches. He weighed was 7lb 1oz. I found not being on my back helped so much, i birthed on my knees leaning over the bed. My second i suspect was posterior as well, the labour with him was all in the back and very painful, again a 40 minute labour, drug free and no stiches.I had him in the shower standing (at the hospital).He weighed 8lb 10 oz. My first was the right way around. No stiches 4 hour labour 7lb 3 oz.

Wow Tan, you're a birthing MACHINE ;)

DS was 18 hours, cord around his neck and from what it seems posterior labour, and no tears (yay lol). I believe he turned just before he crowned, although I could be wrong, the two contractions before I was pushing (which was two contractions) were the most amazing sensation, and it felt so entirely different to the rest of the labour.

Yeah, I can vouch for the difference in pushing out a baby with a malpositioned head and body to one that is the right way round. My first OP birth wasn't that bad with the pushing because she stayed OP and had her chin nicely tucked into her chest, so it wasn't a great deal different to the first two I had but with Alister, he was posterior for the first few pushes and then tried to turn, but got so far as a LOT position (where the baby is laying along the left side, facing towards the right) and the pushing felt so much different - I just knew that something wasn't right because I couldn't feel him move further down with each push. But then his head turned so he was looking over his right shoulder and I knew the instant that his head had turned because on the next push he went from being barely on view to being on the perenium even though his body stayed in the LOT position. So we did have some shoulder dystocia because of his position.

I found this article on Welcome to Spinning Babies! about some myths of an OP birth Myths of occiput posterior and it does make a lot of sense.

For anyone interested, Alisters birth story is here https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...-dystocia.html