“But what I want to discuss is not the necessary and proper use of surgery to deliver babies, but what I and many others consider unnecessary surgery, electively performed simply because of breech presentation. Performed because while we have good surgeons who can do a good CS, they, and we, have forgotten, that most breeches can safely be born vaginally. Many midwives have lost, or never been able to learn, the skills of how to assist a woman to give birth when the diagnosis is made “It’s a breech”. Though we know all about mechanisms and we have sat with enough women through enough labours to know when a labour is progressing well and one which is not.
I emphasise that I am not saying that all breeches can or should be born vaginally but then again, neither can all head-down babies. I have attended many breech births, and in my experience if the labour progresses well and spontaneously and by that I mean-spontaneous onset at or around term, contractions that come oftener, last longer, get stronger, a cervix that effaces and dilates, and a presenting part that descends through the pelvis, this baby will be born.”
~Mary Cronk MBE
AIMS Journal, 2005, Vol 17 No 1
https://www.facebook.com/notes/beautiful-birth/hands-off-that-breech-by-mary-cronk/240459222667522