title: The efficacy of external cephalic version and its impact on the breech experience.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: North Central Obstetrics and Gynecology, Limited, Phoenix, AZ.
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Hanss
mesh_terms: D001946:Breech Presentation; D002585:Cesarean Section / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D036861:Delivery, Obstetric; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011247:Pregnancy; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D014481:United States; D014710:Version, Fetal