I know people who have had unassisted breeches and felt great about it and had great outcomes. (think the two are linked.) I became clsoe online friends, if such a thing xists and I believe it can and does, with a group of women who were really hardcore unassisted, including Laura Shanley who wrote the book about it, literally, and a bunch of the founders of the original unassisted discussion group on yahoo! back when it was Onelist. I've also known some people who went UC and had unfortunate outcomes. my feeling at this point is that there are risks with ANY path one takes in birthing, whether it is medical model, midwifery model, or unassisted/"unhindered" model.

Laura's website www.laurashanley.com has a bunch of breech solo and unassisted tales.

I don;t counsel either way, and my one home birthing...one birthing...was with a midwife. laura;s book had just come out and i read it at a friend;s house and felt that she seemed to have something to "prove" that i didn;t...later we became friends and I adopted some of the UC birthing mindset, but I am also aware that it doesn;t work for everyone.

about 3% of babies present breech at term. that's not a huge percentage but it means it's three times as common as twins. there are some excellent "how to supervise a breech" instructions in recent editions of both Spiritual Midwifery (Ina May Gaskin)and Heart and Hands (Elizabeth Davis.) there is probably also something useful in the Gregory White book on emergency childbirth, whichI've read but don't have..we had a lesson on breech birth as part of the minimal emergency childbirth training you get in EMT school. the main things are to maintain an open airway and support the perineum. my own feeling about most dads at birthings, especially unassisted birthings, is Dad the type to stay calm and focused when his first baby is being born? hard to predict I know, but could be the critical factor unless he can take a back seat and let mom do most of the work.

knowledge is power, and the best thing they can do is read up on breeches. will the midwife provide emergency advice or backup by phone, or is that too risky for her legally?

So my friends have welcomed their beautiful baby girl into the world... It did end up coming to the need of an emergency C-section, but mama and baby are doing well and are expected home today...
I just wanted to let you all know... thank you for the help and support!