There are four main techniques used to free the baby’s shoulder to resolve cases of shoulder dystocia.
McRobert’s maneuver, which involves repositioning the mother’s legs;
Suprapubic pressure, which involves placing pressure at the mother’s pubic bone;
Woods maneuver, which involves the doctor or nurse placing their hand in the birth canal and trying to rotate the baby’s shoulder in a kind of corkscrew motion; and
Delivery of the posterior arm.
If these fail, there are more extreme maneuvers including intentional fracture of the baby’s clavicle to release the shoulder, or a Zavanelli maneuver to push the baby’s head back into the uterus and rush to an emergency C-section.
These maneuvers must be done carefully to avoid further trauma to the mother and baby, but time is also of the essence. In the process, the baby’s brain may be deprived of blood and oxygen, causing other birth injuries like cerebral palsy and brain hypoxia.