The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS, a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA

Breech Overview

About 25% of babies don't turn until after the 28th week. Of those, about 85% will turn before term. Only 3-4% of babies are still breech at term.

There are a variety of techniques that can be used to encourage the baby to turn, although this early in the pregnancy I wouldn't do much beyond thinking about the baby's turning and talking to the baby, suggesting that it might want to turn. Also, I think massaging the baby through the uterus is almost always a good idea.

If the baby still hasn't turned by 32 weeks, you probably will have had another opportunity to discuss this with your caregiver to learn what they recommend. Among the different things that people use to turn babies are: acupuncture/acupressure; herbs; homeopathy; hypnosis; positional exercises; deep water immersion; swimming. The standard medical approach is to wait until 37-38 weeks, when the amniotic fluid is still full, and then try what is called an external version, where "version" means "turning". They usually give you some relaxants and manipulate the baby through your abdomen to try to turn it.

It's lamentable that so few practitioners are trained or experienced in vaginal breech deliveries - if anyone suggests cesarean, you might want to ask for studies that compare relative maternal and newborn outcomes for vaginal vs. cesarean delivery for term breech babies. (It's important that these studies be for term breech babies only, as prematurity and other co-factors of being breech will skew the statistics otherwise.) In particular, breech delivery in a tub eliminates the theoretical risk that exposure of the umbilical cord to air will cause it to stop functioning before the head is born and the baby can breathe on its own.

Of course, chances are very high that this won't even be an issue in another 3 weeks.