Spinning babies!

This past Saturday, Northwell South Shore University Hospital hosted their fifth Spinning Babies training class for birth professionals, including PAs, midwives, physicians, and nurses.

The specialized Spinning Babies workshop takes a proactive approach to improving birth outcomes. This evidence-based training focuses on soft-tissue balancing techniques that help optimize fetal positioning, leading to more comfortable labors, easier births, and fewer C-sections.

Dr. Adriann Combs explained the different maneuvers that are taught during the Spinning Babies workshop can be used throughout pregnancy and during the early part of labor. The maneuvers help move the baby down into the pelvis, positioning the baby for a safe vaginal delivery.

A recent clinical trial showed that hospitals implementing Spinning Babies training reduced cesarean rates by up to 48 percent, particularly for first-time mothers. Those trained in these techniques also reported increased confidence in supporting laboring mothers naturally, without unnecessary interventions.

Spinning Babies instructor and experienced labor and delivery nurse Nikki Zerfas travels around the world teaching nurses, doctors, midwives, doulas, massage therapists, and chiropractors. Zerfas teaches soft tissue balancing techniques, such as different stretches and moves that can help release tension in muscles or ligaments involved in birth.

“When we do that, that makes more room for the baby so that we can trust the baby to find the best position for birth,” Zerfas said.

Trainees gathered in groups around massage tables to practice these stretches and maneuvers called “The Three Balances.”

The first is the jiggle. During this maneuver, the pregnant person lays on their side with a pillow supporting their upper body, one leg bent, while another person places a hand on their hip and “jiggles” the legs and buttocks so that body fluids in the muscle tissue oscillate and are calming and pain-reducing.

The second is the forward-leaning inversion, which optimizes room in the lower uterus, allowing the baby to get into a more ideal position for birth. This maneuver helps head-down babies tuck their chins, breech babies turn transversely or sideways, get vertical, stabilize the baby’s position, and stay head-down.

The third and final technique is side-lying release, which uses a “static stretch” to temporarily and slightly enlarge and soften the pelvis. If needed, it can be repeated every four hours during labor. Some of the benefits of this technique include more pelvic mobility, the release of muscle spasms, fewer sharp contractions, and softened pelvic floor muscles for the baby to move through during birth. SLR can benefit anyone, pregnant or not!

Dr. Julie Gonzalez is the chair of the OBGYN Department at Peconic Bay Medical Center and has been working for Northwell for 10 years. She shared that over the last decade, there has been a big push to reduce C-sections, and the techniques taught through Spinning Babies have helped reduce C-section rates.

“It’s about movement and positioning, and just using these different techniques helps reduce the C-section rate and helps that first-time mom get that vaginal delivery. It’s a great tool to have amongst the other tools that we have in our tool kit to get patients to deliver vaginally,” Dr. Gonzalez said.

The Spinning Babies workshop is transforming how providers support expectant mothers and reshaping the standard of care in labor and delivery.