05/25/2025
👋 NUCHAL HAND 🖐️
A nuchal hand is one of several possible compound presentations. It is dedicated as where an extremity is aside the presenting part of the baby at birth.
The most common type of compound presentation is a Nuchal Hand, which is where the baby has its hand right up by its face during birth.
Most babies will have a hand or two by their face in utero and will retract the hand during birth. But sometimes baby will keep their hand in place and descend in this fashion.
The most common signs of a compound presentation is a “slower” labor or baby having difficulty descending or rotating. But sometimes there’s no clear sign of a compound presentation until baby is actually already emerging.
This is not something that should be an automatic cesarean.
Often times, patience and freedom of movement is all that is needed to birth these babies vaginally.
In my 26 years of birth work, I have seen these compound presentations stations be born vaginally:
✔️single compound hand
✔️single compound with breech birth
✔️dual compound hands (as if on a cell phone)
✔️baby born Superman style
✔️baby born with elbows out and hands reclining behind the head (vogue)
✔️baby born with arm over the top of the head so that the elbow came out first
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