Providing maternity care from outside the system: perspectives of complementary medicine practitioners

ABSTRACT

One in two women in Australia use complementary medicine (CM) during pregnancy including consulting with CM practitioners for pregnancy-related health concerns. Yet, very little is known about the everyday care and practice of this group of health professionals as it relates to the provision of care to childbearing women. As such, this study aims to examine the perceptions and experiences of CM practitioners who provide care to childbearing women. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 practitioners from six CM professions (acupuncturists, doulas, chiropractors, massage therapists, naturopaths, and osteopaths) who identified as providing care to pregnant and birthing women in their clinical practice. The participants described professional issues affecting their provision of care to childbearing women including scope of practice, regulation and standards, and practice-specific issues, all of which they linked back to their profession and the reputation of their profession among other health professionals and the community. The study results draw attention to the importance of considering the perspectives of CM maternity care providers and place on interprofessional collaboration, as well as the barriers they face to achieving this collaboration. The insights afforded by this study have the capacity to inform new policy and practice initiatives to support improved interprofessional maternity care.

KEYWORDS:

• Complementary therapies
• interprofessional
• maternity care
• pregnancy
• regulation

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the participants who gave their time to be involved in this project.

Declaration of Interest

No authors have a conflict of interest to declare.

Additional information

Funding

The lead author was funded through an Australian Postgraduate Award from the Department of Education and Training (Australian Government) during the data collection phase of this study. We also acknowledge the ARC for funding this project via Discovery Project Funding.

Notes on contributors

Amie Steel

Dr Amie Steel is Senior Research Fellow at the Australian Research Centre in Complementary and Integrative Medicine, University of Technology Sydney.

Helene Diezel

Ms Helene Diezel is Senior Lecturer, Honours at Endeavour College of Natural Health.

Jane Frawley

Dr Jane Frawley is Senior Lecturer, Public Health at the Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney.

Jon Wardle

Dr Jon Wardle is Associate Professor, Public Health at the Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney.

Jon Adams

Professor Jon Adams is Distinguished Professor, Public Health and Director of the Australian Research Centre in Complementary and Integrative Medicine, University of Technology Sydney.