[On The Threshold between Birth and Release: an Integrative Obstetrics Intervention]

Over the past decade, complementary medicine services have been increasingly integrated into departments of obstetrics (i.e., Integrative Obstetrics) throughout Israel. This case report is presented with the goal to learn about a collaborative treatment setting involving a team of obstetric and integrative medicine practitioners. The narrative-qualitative case report analyzed the response of a woman who had been referred to an Integrative Obstetrics service after giving birth. The patient was hospitalized in the postnatal obstetric department, where she was referred by the chief department nurse to an Integrative Obstetrics service treatment with the indication of post-lumbar puncture headache pain, two days following birth. The narratives analyzed for the case study included those from the patient, the referring nurse, the patient, the integrative medicine practitioner, and the patient's obstetrician. This case study was analyzed within the broader context of integrative obstetric programs in Israel. In conclusion, communication between the obstetric and integrative medicine teams is a key factor in providing an informed referral to integrative obstetric care, based on a focused clinical indication (e.g., pain), and in creating a unified and multi-disciplinary therapeutic approach which is then documented in the patient's medical record.