Hearing that your baby is breech after 37 weeks can be alarming for a pregnant woman to hear. It increases worry about the upcoming birth—what complications will come from a baby that is feet or buttocks first, will an emergency cesarean be necessary? While easier said than done, relax—additional stress will not help your full term baby flip head down. Before your doctor attempts to turn your baby by hand, consider these four natural methods to turn a breech baby.

Play music on your lower abdomen: Although somewhat of an Old Wives Tale, playing music low on the stomach has been known to help turn breech babies. Babies can hear music and voices outside of the womb—if you play music or talk loudly, you may begin to feel more movement. Use headphones and move the sound lower down on the uterus to see if you can make baby follow the music. If you have a voice recorder handy, you can do the same thing using the sound of your own voice.

Make the top part of your stomach cold: Babies in the womb are used to warm and cozy surroundings. By placing a bag of frozen veggies or a bag of ice (wrapped up in a towel, of course), you may be able to get the top of your uterus cool enough to make the baby want to move away from it. Hopefully, they will manage to do this by going head down.

Seek chiropractic care: Chiropractors may help ease many aches and pains throughout pregnancy, but they may also help naturally flip a baby to ideal labor positioning. The non-invasive technique used by many chiropractors to relax a pregnant woman's body, the pelvis in particular, is called the Webster Technique. The gentle adjustment attempts to reduce pressure and stress on the uterus and the reinforcing ligaments. If you have never been to a chiropractor prior to being pregnant, seek advice from your obstetrician before attempting this method. For more information, contact Buffalo Grove Chiropractic Center.

Hypnotherapy: A relaxed uterus encourages optimal positioning of the baby—hypnotherapy can help a pregnant woman achieve that level of relaxation. By allowing yourself to fully relax, you follow a hypnotherapist through a series of instructions where you actually visualize the baby flipping into a head down position. Sometimes visualizing makes something a reality.

None of these natural methods are a sure way to turn a baby that is feet or buttocks down. In some cases it may be necessary for the doctor to try to turn the baby head down by hand. This approach used by doctors is known as External Cephalic Version. However, this is not a 100 percent sure way to turn a baby either.

Hearing that your full term baby is breach can be a frightening thing, but relaxing and attempting any of these four methods may get him or her turned around.