All About the Miles Circuit
Me, very pregnant with my 2nd baby “What can I do to induce labor?”
Lady in a Facebook group “Do the Miles Circuit!”
Me “Cool! Ummmm is that like, a place? Or a class? Or… something else?”
Sound familiar? Or maybe this was something that a lot of women knew about and I had just been embracing that introvert life a little too long and hard.
Judging by the number of people finding this blog because they were Googling the Miles Circuit (there were a lot of you!), I was not the only one who was not born with inherent knowledge of the Miles Circuit!
So let’s do this together. Let’s talk about what the Miles Circuit is, why you should be doing it, when you should be doing it and what it does NOT do.
First of all, I’d like to give full credit to the creators of the Miles Circuit. You can find the entire website about it here. Any worksheets or downloads about the Miles Circuit should be bought from them and not from other people copying their work.
Let’s dive in!
What is the Miles Circuit?
The Miles Circuit is a series of positions that help to move your baby into a favorable position and to relieve back pain caused by your baby not being in a favorable position to begin with. There are three positions that you do:
Open knee chest
Exaggerated side lying position
Get up and moving
You are supposed to do each position for 30 minutes each and focus on not moving out of those positions even through contractions. Here is the breakdown of each position and how to do them correctly.
Why do the Miles Circuit?
The point of the Circuit is to help your pelvis open up to give you baby room to rotate and/or move down so their head can engage with the cervix and allow contractions to be effective and strong. Yes, this means softening, thinning and dilating your cervix! Yay!
The Miles Circuit is also quite relaxing when you prepare for it properly and goodness knows that you need ways to relax the closer you get to your due date! A perk about relaxing is that it boosts oxytocin, which is the most important hormone when it comes to labor. If you are looking for more natural ways to induce labor, check out this blog here.
When should you start doing the Miles Circuit?
Because of the purpose the Miles Circuit is used, it is recommended to wait until you are 37 weeks to start doing it and to start slowly with each position only being 10 minutes long.
You can do the Circuit not only to start labor, but also during labor. The Circuit is an excellent tool to relieve back labor and to speed up contractions if they’ve slowed down.
Note: Exaggerated Side Lying position is wonderful for moms who get an epidural because you are limited in positions you can use, but it keeps your pelvis open and allows your baby to move down so easily!
What can the Miles Circuit not do?
It would seem that the Miles Circuit does everything except take you somewhere nice for dinner, right? So what can’t the Miles Circuit do?
The Circuit, although a great tool to help to position your baby favorably, you shouldn’t rely on it to flip a breech baby. There are protocols that do have great outcomes for turning a breech baby and the Miles Circuit may play a part in it, but it shouldn’t be relied on solely for that outcome.
The Circuit also cannot guarantee that you’ll go into labor. Instead, what it does is it provides your baby and your body every opportunity to work together to go into labor. But ultimately, you will go into labor when your body is ready.