Worth it Wednesday: Chiropractor for a Breech Baby??

*So I know “Worth it Wednesday” is supposed to be a short blurb, but I tend to be a bit long-winded, so you can consider this another full blog for the day! A 2-for-1 Wednesday! Sweet.*

Well I thought it would be good to follow Vanessa’s post about her inability to raise her arms with a quick Austin spotlight on a doctor who deals with all types of aches and pains. My chiropractor. Yes, I have a chiropractor. No, I am not a fifty-year-old man.

In fact, when you walk into Dr. Ron Burnett’s house of neck mobility, aka Inner Sun Chiropractic on 6th Street (near Z’Tejas— speaking of, have you been entering to win the ZT gift certificate this week??)– anyway, when you go see Dr. Ron, you are less likely to see a waiting room full of fifty-year old men, and much more likely to see a waiting room full of mamas just like yourself. Some, as in Vanessa’s case, are there to counteract workout pain (Dr. Ron, a triathlete and marathoner, is super helpful here). Others are there as the result of accidents or falls or life or bad posture or talking on the phone on the left ear all the time (guilty as charged).

And then into the waiting room always walks a whale, sorrrrry, a glowing pregnant mama. That was me when I first found Dr. Ron. Actually this is where the story gets kind of intense, at least for me. So there I was at my OB/Midwives’ office, 37 weeks pregnant, with a

lifetime full of dreams of natural childbirth . . . and a late-term breech baby. I had tried everything to get her to “flip”: downward dog off the stairs for what seems like hours in my memory, frozen vegetables against my tummy, flashlight at my crotch . . . You name it, I tried it, and a c-section was still looming in my future. My OB (Dr. Sebestyen) recommended I try one last thing before we attempt the excruciatingly painful and not always successful “manual turn.” She suggested I give Dr. Ron Burnett a call and schedule what’s called the Webster Technique. I honestly scoffed at the idea of a chiropractor having any effect, but was desperate (I mean, really, Vinnie had found me upside down with an IPod playing music at my giney the night before. Yes, that is what V calls her girl parts).

I called Inner Sun immediately, and that was when I first encountered the office angels who fit me right in. I waddled in, the whale I mentioned before, and proceeded to wait anxiously for some dramatic procedure. Well let me tell you there was absolutely no terrifying neck popping like I imagined. Instead, he realigned my pelvis by simply having me lay on blocks in a certain way, and then used light-pressure vibrational touch in my stomach to somehow realign my tilted uterus. Doesnt sound like much, huh? He even admits it is sometimes voodoo magic. His website tells more about it here.

All I know is that at 4:00 in the morning the night after the appointment, as I lay in bed alternately praying, getting up to pee, and dreading my 8:00 am ultrasound & impending manual turn/possible c-section, I felt a wild rumpus in my womb. I couldn’t believe it to be truly possible, but I just knew there was something big going on. The ultrasound confirmed that V was head-down and ready to go (you can read my non-epidural birth story here), and if i could have had a huge ass glass of champagne to celebrate, I would have.

So then, after giving birth and experiencing awful neck and back pain from nursing complications, Dr. Ron got me back on track. He even checked out V to make sure that the journey through the birth canal did not have any effect on her neck, and did a light adjustment on her just yesterday that he says is from normal patterns of neck use but that I have a sinking suspicion comes from her couch dive night before. Oops. I actually just started going back to him for that nagging neck pain that seems to accompany carrying a child, but is exacerbated by jogging the trails of Zilker all hunched forward over my beloved Bob which I described here in our Austin stroller guide.

So whether you are a desperate mama with a breech baby, a nursing mother who spends hours out of her day bending over a newborn, a Crossfitter who can’t raise her arms, or even a worried mom with a breech, colicky, sick, or sore kiddo, think about finding a good chiropractor. Inner Sun’s motto is To, “Love, honor, and serve the fullest expression of life.” And just imagine that life without the pain we all too often go through life dragging along with us.

And for the record, I know the Webster Technique does not ALWAYS work, and I don’t want to get your hopes up if you are breech . . . If only because I want you to be as surprised as I was if it actually works.