What does it mean when a baby is in the posterior position?
When your baby in utero is head-down but facing your abdomen, he's said to be in the occiput posterior (OP) position. The term refers to the fact that the baby's occipital bone (the back of the skull) is in the posterior (or back) of your pelvis. You may also hear this position referred to as "face-up" or "sunny-side up."
How common is it for a baby to be in this position?
Estimates vary, but between 5 and 12 percent of babies are face-up at delivery, and the percentage is higher among first-time mothers than those having subsequent babies.
A baby's position can change during labor as he negotiates his way through the birth canal, and he may not assume his final position until shortly before birth. A study published in 2005 that used ultrasound to assess the positions of the babies of more than 1,500 first-time mothers during the course of labor showed just how variable and unpredictable a baby's position can be.
On the first ultrasound (done when mothers were admitted to the hospital for induction or in labor), close to one-quarter of the babies were face-up (occiput posterior), nearly one-half were facing sideways (occiput transverse), and the rest were facing down (occiput anterior). Ultrasounds were repeated at one or two other points and then at the time of birth.
Most of the babies were in the more favorable face-down position by the time they were delivered. Among the babies who were posterior late in labor, about 1 in 5 was still face-up at the time of delivery. Among babies who were in the more favorable face-down position in later in labor, only 1 in 20 was born face-up.
If my baby is posterior during labor, does that mean I'll have back labor?
Back labor — the intense lower back pain that many women feel during labor — has long been thought to be more common when the baby is facing up. But this isn't known for sure. For one thing, ultrasound studies show that practitioners are often mistaken in their assessment of a baby's position, particularly early in labor.
In the study mentioned above, nearly 700 of the women were asked about pain when they were admitted to the hospital, and while more than 1 in 4 reported having back labor at that time, moms whose babies were face-up were no more likely to complain of back labor or more intense pain than women whose babies were facing down or sideways. (Unfortunately, there was no information about pain perception later in labor because over 90 percent of the women in the study ended up with an epidural.)
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1 comment:
don't too worry honey, he will turn to the correct possition, insyaAllah. Let us pray a lot for this little guy ok, muah! hehehehe, selalukan mencangkung bak kata prof, hehe, muah!
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