  Conformal symmetry can be spontaneously broken due to the presence of a
defect or other background, which gives a symmetry-breaking vacuum expectation
value (VEV) to some scalar operators. We study the effective field theory of
fluctuations around these backgrounds, showing that it organizes as an
expansion in powers of the inverse of the VEV, and computing some of the
leading corrections. We focus on the case of space-like defects in a
four-dimensional Lorentzian theory relevant to the pseudo-conformal universe
scenario, although the conclusions extend to other kinds of defects and to the
breaking of conformal symmetry to Poincar\'e symmetry.
