Maternity acupuncture: Exploring triumphs and tribulations of clinical practice. Do treatment recommendations made in text books and lectures relate to real life clinical practice? What conditions do acupuncturists find the most challenging and what successes would they like to share? This workshop explores issues raised through practitioners Facebook questions, e mails to Debra and an anonymous online survey open to IFS attendees. Issues will be addressed through presenting treatment suggestions, as well as opportunities for group discussion to share success stories. 

Setting the scene. How do practitioners of maternity acupuncture in Canadian and the US compare to their follow counterparts in the UK and New Zealand and Australia? Using survey responses Debra will compare what treatments are (and are not), being delivered by practitioners in these countries and differences in clinical practice.

Lost potential. Promoting use of postnatal care. The use of acupuncture for:  promoting breast milk production, perineal healing and caesarean section recovery. Treatment approaches for mastitis, post- partum urinary incontinence and a discussion on use of the placenta as a postnatal tonic from a traditional Chinese medical viewpoint.

What keeps me awake at night? A discussion on promoting safe and ethical clinical practice using the re-occurring themes for placenta previa, induction and breech seen in Facebook posts, e mail questions and survey responses.

Treatment challenges. Suggestions for the most challenging clinical conditions as nominated by the survey responses of IFS attendees. Currently these are nominated as hyperemesis, anxiety and depression, headaches/migraines and gestational diabetes.  To have your say and be part of this workshop please visit the anonymous survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5VNVTGY

This survey will be open until registrations for this workshop close.

Sharing the success. Point prescriptions used by acupuncture students and midwives provide possible foundations for clinical practice. These high response treatments for common conditions such as pregnancy nausea, heart burn, varicosities, back pain, high blood pressure, and cervical ripening can be used with confidence to promote your practice. In addition Debra will share feedback from some of the less frequent presentations that hold promising potential for future acupuncture promotion, conditions such as: mid trimester preterm premature rupture of the foetal membranes (PPROM), premature labour, and small- for- dates babies. This will be flowed by an open discussion to share treatments ideas that can be used promote and build maternity acupuncture into a strong branch of Chinese medicine for the future. 

Learning objectives 

Workshop participants can expect to: 

• Learn how their practice compares with acupuncturists in surveys of maternity related care in the United States, Canada, Australian, New Zealand and the UK.
• Increase their understanding the conditions seen as high responders for acupuncture related maternity care.
• Ensure they are engaging in safe and ethical clinical practice when offering women treatment for placenta previa, induction and breech.
• Increase their understanding of challenges and success stories in maternity care as nominated by their peers.