Thursday, July 28, 2005

Turn baby turn

We spent yesterday reading up on the procedure the doctors may use to turn the baby from a breach position and also on ways to persuade the baby to turn without physically intervening.

Acupuncture is apparently very successful at turning the baby from a breach position in China and Japan, specifically a combination of acupuncture and moxibustion is used between 32 and 36 weeks.

Hayley also read that playing music to the baby and shining a torch up from "down below" can cause the baby to turn towards it. So yesterday afternoon she lay on the bed with the radio playing (not too loudly) resting on her legs and lower abdomen. The baby became quite active for a while but probably not enough to have turned.

We also read that playing the mother's voice from down below can cause the baby to turn but we didn't have a tape recorder handy or we'd probably have tried that too.

Finally late last night - after getting into a "on knees and elbows" position that is conducive to turning several times through the evening - Hayley lay in bed while I shone a torch at her lower belly and tried talking to the bump. This produced no notable response and must have looked ridiculous.

On a related subject, the baby can apparently recognise the father's voice at birth so I sometimes talk or even sing to the bump. Some nights we both sing the lullaby I wrote. (Cheesy but fun.) I'm really curious to see if he/she shows even the slightest sign of recognition on hearing it outside the womb. Hayley still plays the Baby Mozart and Baby Bach in the car so the same applies there.