What it is
Back labor is deep pain in the low back during contractions and often between them. The usual cause is a posterior baby, or OP for occiput posterior: head down but facing your belly instead of your spine. Sunny side up means the same thing. The hard back of the baby's head presses on your sacrum.
What's typical
About 15 to 30 in 100 babies start labor posterior. Most turn on their own during labor. Around 5 in 100 are still posterior at birth. Those labors tend to run longer, with longer pushing, more assisted births, and more tears. A baby who turns late can make a slow labor speed up within an hour.
What's known
Spinning Babies and the older optimal fetal positioning teaching favor forward-leaning positions in late pregnancy. A Cochrane review found hands-and-knees in late pregnancy did not change position at birth, but it did ease back pain. In labor, peanut balls shorten labor for mothers with epidurals.
What helps
- Hands and knees, leaning over a ball or the bed. It takes the baby's head off your spine.
- Counterpressure or the double hip squeeze from your partner through every contraction.
- Heat or a cold pack on the low back, or water. Floating takes weight off the sacrum.
When to call someone
- Nowback pain that is constant and severe with bleeding or fever, or back ache in waves before 37 weeks. Call now.
- Todayyou are past 36 weeks and have not been told the baby's position. Call and ask.
- At your next visitask what your provider does in labor for a baby who stays posterior.
Who helps
Tools: Birth Plan Generator · Birthworker Directory
Related
- Pain options: from breathing to epiduralGetting Ready for Birth
- Pushing and positions for birthGetting Ready for Birth
- Breech baby and turning optionsPregnancy: Your Body
- The stages of labor, plainlyBirth and the First Days
- Vacuum and forceps birthsBirth and the First Days
What mothers here say
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Experiences and questions are their authors' own, not reviewed advice. The topic's steward lists the ones that help most in a credited digest once there is one. Unusual experiences stay, with a note.
Sources
- Cochrane — Hands and knees posture in late pregnancy or labour for fetal malposition
- Cochrane — Maternal positions and mobility during first stage labour
- Spinning Babies — Posterior baby and back labor parent pages
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