Tag: induction

Understanding Induction of Labour for Vaginal Breech Birth: What Do We Know and What’s Next?

Webinar Wednesday 19 November 2025, Microsoft Teams

Vaginal breech birth (VBB), where a baby is born bottom or feet first, is becoming increasingly accepted as a safe option for some women when supported by skilled professionals. However, there’s still uncertainty about what happens if labour needs to be started or “induced.” Because there isn’t much evidence about the risks and benefits of induction of labour (IOL) for breech babies, many clinicians remain cautious. This can limit women’s choices and could potentially lead to some women making unsafe decisions, especially when birth needs to be brought forward for medical reasons.

This webinar will share findings from a recent systematic review which looked at what is currently known about the safety of inducing labour for women with a breech baby at term. It compared outcomes with:

  • Women who went into labour spontaneously
  • Women who had a planned caesarean when earlier birth was advised
  • Women with a head-down (cephalic) baby who had labour induced

I’ll share what the research tells us, and where the gaps still are.
We’ll open the conversation to explore what further research is needed, and how both women and professionals can work together to shape safer, more informed choices for breech birth in the future.

The term “women” is used here in relation to biological sex. We recognise and respect that people of diverse gender identities also give birth, and we aim to include and welcome everyone with lived experience of pregnancy and birth in this discussion.

Everyone is welcome, whether you’re a parent, birth worker, midwife, obstetrician, researcher, or simply interested in supporting informed decision making in maternity care.

Amy Meadowcroft, Breech Specialist Midwife, NIHR Pre-doctoral clinical fellow, Oldham

We will also discuss induction of labour for planned vaginal breech birth in our upcoming half-day study day on 21st November, also available via subscription to our OptiBreech Webinars series.

Upcoming OptiBreech public involvement & engagement meetings

You are invited to help us design and deliver the next stages of OptiBreech research, March 6 and March 14.

You are invited to help us design and deliver the next stages of OptiBreech research. We have scheduled two meetings on the following dates in March:

Monday, 6 March, 2-3.30 pm — via Zoom

Tuesday, 14 March, 6-7.30 pm — via Zoom

Events are open to women and birthing people and maternity care providers throughout the UK.

OptiBreech participants and breech clinic leaders have identified the need to answer the following two questions:

How do the outcomes of head-first birth after an external cephalic version (ECV) compare to vaginal breech birth with OptiBreech care?

  • Will having an attempt at ECV improve outcomes for mothers and/or babies compared to just having a vaginal breech birth?

Is it safe to offer induction of labour for women and birthing people when their babies are breech, if an earlier birth would be safer or the person chooses to be induced after 39 weeks?

  • Current RCOG guidance indicates induction is not commonly recommended in the UK, but some women have told us they would like to have this option. Careful induction of labour is available in other European settings that support vaginal breech birth.

We would particularly like to hear from families who have been affected by breech presentation at the end of pregnancy within the past five years. We will seek your views on how we should design this research and how we should share information with people to ensure they understand the potential risks and benefits of participating.

Shawn

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