Evidence Based Holistic Nursing

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So most research I found discussing postpartum depression (PPD) covered postnatal treatment or pre/postnatal screening and treatment but ONLY ONE actually addressed it via family education and prevention strategies as a program taught during the perinatal period.
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Remember, PPD is extremely common, it’s the number one perinatal complication and su***de is the number one cause of maternal death-please see my previous two posts to understand the epidemic that is PPD. Education and prevention should be of up most important when it comes to addressing the PPD crisis.
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The program was developed by a nurse and training is offered to those who work in women’s health. Please spread the word and let’s all do our part in smashing the taboo & crisis that is PPD! Checkout the info on the training here👉🏼 http://mbpti.org/programs/mbcp/mbcp-mindfulness-based-childbirth-and-parenting/
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Side note: the creator of the course and others have since 2010 done small scale randomized control trials on the program with similar positive results, please check out the public access literature review titled “Mindfulness-Based Childbirth and Parenting (MBCP): Innovation in Birth Preparation to Support Healthy, Happy Families” here 👉🏼 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5645068/
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Research Review Reference:
Duncan, L.G. & Bardacke, N. (2009). Mindfulness-based childbirth and parenting education: promoting family mindfulness during the perinatal period. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 19, 190-202. doi: 10.1007/s10826-009-9313-7
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@ Miami, Florida

Meet Nigeria’s small but growing vegetarian and vegan community In Nigeria, many say being a vegetarian is just not ... Nigerian. But a tiny, growing group is trying to promote a vegetarian — even vegan — diet.

RESEARCH PREVIEW:🧐
📋FACT:
Yes, there is a hormonal shift that occurs post birth which can lead to what is dubbed “baby blues,” however, that biochemical shift is only☝🏼out of infinite mind-body-spirit reasons why some women suffer “baby blues” at all and why feelings of depression and emotional instability can extend the defined “baby blues” period of the first two weeks postpartum (PP), leading to a diagnoses of PPD (Clevesy, Gatlin, Cheese, & Strebel, 2019).
📋FACT:
PPD negatively impacts infant-mother bonding & infant mental/physical development (Clevesy et al, 2019). Which is why (in 2015) the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, & Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) endorsed routine perinatal screenings for mood disturbances & in 2016 the Council on Patient Safety in Women’s Healthcare (CPSWH) created a “Maternal Safety Bundle” to arm practitioners with a standardized version of the latest evidence based practices/tools necessary to address maternal mental health (Clevesy et al, 2019).
📋FACT:
Yet, the prevalence of PPD is 10-20% (making it the number one complication), su***de is the #1 cause of maternal death, no standardized PPD screening measure/nationally mandated protocol exists & no national screening rates available for PPD in the USA, thus it is severely under diagnosed and subsequently under treated (Clevesy et al, 2019).
🤨WHY?
It’s no question that screening increases detection & treatment (Clevesy et al, 2019), however, breaking the taboo through education, community involvement, encouraging a comunal responsibility to parenting/motherhood as holistic methods to address the multifactorial crisis that is PPD, are there any such evidence-based holistic practices? Sadly I only found 1 but promising pilot study/program based out of the University of California San Diego Center for Mindfulness. So stay tuned for the full review!

Clevesy, M.A., Gatlin, T.K, Cheese, C., & Strebel, K. (2019). A project to improve postpartum screening practices among provider’s in a community women’s healthcare clinic. Nursing for Women’s Health Journal, 23(2), 21-30. doi: 10.1016/j.nwh.2018.11.005 21

NYC's New Plant-Based Medicine Program Is Healing High Cholesterol and Obesity With More Plants and Less Medicine Green Matters spoke with Dr. Sapana Shah to learn about Bellevue's new plant-based medicine program.

Here’s some food for thought, did you know according to the that nationally 1 in 9 women experience postpartum depression (PPD), with some states reporting rates as high as 1 in 5!
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Now, gestational diabetes (GD) rates vary from 2-10% of pregnancies & we screen diligently for it 👏🏼 BUT what do we do for women prenatally to help them prepare for the postpartum period? 🤷🏽‍♀️ With those numbers I mentioned earlier on PPD, a mother to be is more likely to suffer from PPD than GD! Clearly a pamphlet on PPD handed to a Mother within 24hrs postpartum is not enough. To often, the focus after birth goes to the baby while the Mother often silently deals with one of the greatest physical and emotional transitional events of her life (helloooo I wish I had been given a heads up about that). The transition period into motherhood felt more like a hazing for me and I can’t help but wonder if it would have been any different if I had known to prepare for it the way I prepared for birth. I needed a postpartum plan besides my birth plan, I needed community. 🌀 If you been following me from the start, you know I’ve been on a LONG hiatus from this account. Reason being, I’m a new mom forever learning how to keep my s**t together 😅 I know I suffered from a level of PPD (which is different from the baby blues) and now I’m setting out to find out if there are any evidence based practices on prenatal care & PPD. Do you work with prenatal post natal women? What do you do to screen/help prevent/minimize PPD?
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Stay tuned!
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Side note: this is a 📸 of my Cataleia and I , this is our community and once I found it our lives changed for the better. I’m forever grateful 🙏🏼

📚Research Review
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🧠Physical and mental dis-ease can often lead to a chronic stress (sympathetic nervous system) response within us, further escalating our physical and mental dis-ease (Rancour, 2017).

☝🏼What if I told you that there is a free, easy to learn, side effect free, self or clinician administered self-care technique that taps into our innate self-healing capacity by breaking that dis-ease/stress response feedback loop AND its applicable to a wide array of psychological & physical ailments (Rancour, 2017)?

💆🏻‍♀️My last two posts covered a very brief history & introduction on that amazing technique aptly dubbed Emotional Freedom Technique aka EFT aka tapping.

👩🏽‍💻Yes it sounds too good to be true, but the research is solid, and so hey, why not add another self-care empowerment tool to our magic bags? For ourselves and our patients, the more options we have to offer/choose from, the more likely we are to feel empowered to engage in self-care.

🌀So swipe left (9 slides total) for a full research review on Rancour’s (2017) research discussion on EFT so you can add it to your and your patient’s self-care toolbox🤙🏼
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Rancour, P. (2017). The emotional freedom technique, finally a unifying theory for the practice of holistic nursing or too good to be true? Journal of Holistic Nursing, 35(4), 382-388.
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RESEARCH PREVIEW
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😲Would you believe that Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) has an efficacy rate of 98% over a staggering diversity of emotional & physical ailments cited in over 60 peer reviewed journals (Rancour, 2017)?

💆🏽‍♀️EFT has evolved over the last 48 years & thanks to the overwhelming contribution of knowledge from the field of psychoneuroimmunology, the interconnectedness of mind, body, spirit/consciousness is no longer a contested theory (Rancour, 2017).
💆🏽‍♂️A type of energy psychology simultaneously involving cognitive and energy therapy, EFT is a technique one can perform on others and teach others to perform on themselves (Rancour, 2017).
💆🏻‍♀️ In a nut shell, according to Montgomery (as cited by Rancour, 2017), EFT involves holding gentle mindful attention to a specific emotional or physical ailment/trigger as one taps on designated meridian acupoints with one’s fingertips.

🤔Too good to be true? I know that’s what you might be thinking. So feel free to check out a comprehensive research review available for you on Comprehensive Energy Psychology’s website👉🏼 http://energypsych.site-ym.com/?Research_Landing.
💆🏻‍♂️And stay tuned for the complete review on EFT’s mechanism of action, safety profile, overview on the actual technique itself, & implications for nursing practice.
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Rancour, P. (2017). The emotional freedom technique, finally a unifying theory for the practice of holistic nursing or too good to be true? Journal of Holistic Nursing, 35(4), 382-388.
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EFT aka Emotional Freedom Technique.
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Anyone familiar with this? 🦋
It turns out the research supporting it is pretty darn good, almost too good to be true!
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So if you’re into Mind Body therapies such as Acupuncture/Acupressure & Mindfulness/cognitive awareness practices such as affirmations/mantras stay tuned this week to learn about EFT and how it’s sorta like a combination of all that with a dash of psychotherapy all in one cool technique! The implications for holistic nursing practice are HUGE!
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Side note👉🏼I’m not actually practicing EFT on myself in this picture YET but just trying to familiarize myself with the meridian end points related to EFT.
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Research Review
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🌿Love essential oil (EO) aromatherapy and want to see it offered to your patients in your clinical unit?

💚Well, YOU are the game changer💚

👩🏽‍⚕️NURSES are perfectly poised to bring integrative holistic therapies to the bedside. It won’t be easy and it will take Work Work Work! BUT nothing is ever easy when it’s worth it! 🏥 are not going away and it is up to us to improve & DEMAND integrative/holistic care for our patient’s at the bedside.

👆🏼👈🏼Swipe left for an overview of how Conlon et al. (2016) implemented the independent integrative holistic nursing intervention at the bedside.

👇🏼3 Key Points from Conlon et al. (2016)👇🏼

👩🏽‍💻EDUCATE: yourself and others such as key stake holders about the mounting supportive evidence & benchmark other institutions already using the modality.

📋FUNDRAISE & PETITION: involve the local community to be a part of the process of improving their healthcare.

🌿START SMALL: begin in your unit, choose only three single no mixture EO to start with such as Lavender, Mandarin, & Spearmint which have an overall positive safety profile & treat a range of common symptoms such as nausea, pain, sleeplessness, anxiety, & fatigue.
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✌🏼Hope you enjoyed this post and are inspired to start an integrative/holistic movement in your clinical area. Make sure to check my previous post about EO aromatherapy & stay tuned for my next research preview followed by the review in the coming weeks!
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Conlon, P.M., Haack, K.M., Rodgers, N.J., Dion, L.J., Cambern, K.L., Rohlik, G.M., . . . Ayers, S.J. (2016). Introducing essential oils into pediatric and other practices at an academic medical center. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 35(4), 389-396.
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@ Miami, Florida

RESEARCH PREVIEW
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🙋🏽‍♀️Raise your hand if you love aromatherapy!
🙋🏽‍♀️🙋🏽‍♀️Better yet, if you would love to see it implemented as a complimentary/alternative therapy offered by nurses to hospital patients?
👆🏼That’s exactly what the folks in the research article did and they share the why and how they did it so that you too can get inspired to do the same in your clinical setting.
🌱According to the National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy (as cited in Conlon et al., 2016, p. 389), aromatherapy is “the art & science of using naturally extracted aromatic essences from plants to balance, harmonize, & promote the health of body, mind, & soul.”
🌱And most importantly, these essential oils (EOs) are only considered pure, true essential oils when extracted by distillation with steam and/or water and not with chemicals (Conlon et al., 2016).
🌱Clinical aromatherapy is a growing evidence based minimally invasive integrative approach to whole person healing such as providing relief from common symptoms of pain, nausea, anxiety, & sleeplessness (Conlon et al., 2016).
🌱Nurses are perfectly positioned to offer aromatherapy as an independent first line or complimentary nursing intervention at the bedside, in line with the holistic nursing principle of moving along the intervention spectrum from less to more invasive interventions (Conlon et al., 2016).
🌱However, according to Tisserand & Young (as cited in Conlon et al., 2016), standard administration, safety, & quality control remain a major concern re: clinical applications of EOs.
📋With these points in mind, Conlon et al. (2016) conducted a 6 month pilot study in a pediatric: general, intensive care, & ambulatory unit to introduce EOs at the bedside.
📋73 of the 77 nurses who administered the EOs reported positive patient outcomes (Conlon et al., 2016).
📋As a result, a new nursing guideline & online education module was developed & now most inpatient and ambulatory areas in that medical institution offer EOs as an integrative modality (Conlon et al., 2016).
📋BUT HOW DID THEY DO IT? Stay tuned for the next post to find out!
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Conlon, P.M., Haack, K.M., Rodgers, N.J., Dion, L.J., Cambern, K.L., Rohlik, G.M., . . . Ayers, S.J. (2016). Introducing essential oils into pediatric and other practices at an academic medical center. Journal of Holistic Nursing, 35(4), 389-396.
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Alright everyone, here’s a preview of research topics of interest within holistic nursing (Mariano, 2013) that I will be posting content about:
-Caring healing relationship
-Subjective experience & meanings, cultural values, beliefs & folk practices re: health, illness, wellness, healing, birth, growth & development, & dying.
-Spirituality in nursing care
-Evaluation of complimentary/alternative modalities
-Health promotion & prevention
-Self-care
-Physical, mental, emotional, & spiritual comfort, discomfort, & pain
-Empowerment, decision making, & informed choices
-Social & economic policies re: the health of the individual, families, & community
-Diverse & alternative healthcare systems re: access & quality of healthcare
-The environment & prevention of disease
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Don’t see something you want to be covered? DM or comment below and I’ll research that too! And take a look at my story for a poll, I want to give you what you want to see!
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Mariano, C. (2013). Holistic nursing: scope and standards of practice. In B.M. Dossey, L. Keegan, C.C. Barrere & M.B Helming (Eds.), Holistic Nursing A Handbook for Practice (pp. 59-80). Burlington, MA: Jones and Bartlett Learning.
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