The efficacy of external cephalic version and its impact on the breech experience

With the introduction of ultrasonography, tocolysis, and electronic fetal monitoring, external cephalic version is considered safer and is more frequently used for the management of breech presentation. A retrospective review of a level III obstetric unit for the year 1988 is reported. Three hundred fifty-seven breech births were recorded. One hundred twelve patients were seen for external cephalic version. Forty-seven patients (48.9%) were successfully converted from breech. The cesarean section rate of successful versus unsuccessful version was 17.2% and 77.5%, respectively, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the technique. The overall impact is small. Success measured as a vaginal cephalic delivery of a previously known breech presentation represented less than 0.5% of all deliveries and less than 10% of all breech deliveries at this institution during 1988.