Acupuncture Used on Breech Babies

Every year, thousands of women have C-sections. Often it's because the baby's in a breech position, meaning its head is up and its feet are down, but now there's a belief that an ancient technique may spare some pregnant women from surgery.

It looks like Rae Ann Spieles is about to have her little toe burned. In reality, she's receiving a type of acupuncture. It's called moxibustion, and it uses heat instead of needles. The goal is to turn around a breech baby.

Raeann Spieles, expectant mother: "He's definitely moving around a lot more since she just started doing it."

It was her obstetrician, Doctor Jacques Moritz, who 1st suggested acupuncture.  He says scientific studies show acupuncture is better than placebo at turning breech babies.

Dr. Jacques Moritz, Roosevelt Hospital: "The mechanism of why this works, I don't quite understand, but there are many things in Chinese or our own medicine that we see every day that we can't quite explain, and this is definitely 1 of them."

Doctor Naomi Rabinowitz is a physician and an acupuncturist. She says there's a spot on the outside of the foot that stimulates the baby to turn.

Dr. Naomi Rabinowitz, Physician-Acupuncturist: "One of the things we know through scientific study is that it increase fetal activity in part because it relaxes the muscle layer of uterine wall."

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