In the past decade, there have been more advocacies that push for the integration of occupational therapy (OT) into primary healthcare. I consider this to be a worthy cause! However, many of the attempts at relating OT to health promotion and systems development ended up compromising the profession’s ethos. What’s unique about OT is that it equips persons with disabilities, impairments, and chronic medical conditions with the skills that are necessary for accomplishing daily living activities to fulfill their life roles. Based on evidence, OT cannot address health problems at the systems level as effectively as the field of public health does, although occupational therapists certainly know many principles that can contribute to public health.
How then do we integrate OT into primary healthcare? I wanted to explore this further as an occupational therapist with graduate training in international health. But this time, I didn’t want to merely learn from textbooks and keep the learnings to myself. So I set out to organize a free webinar on maternal and child health, with OT as an integrated service. The title of the webinar was, “Self-Care for Pregnant Moms: Tips for Having Healthy Babies!”
Staying True to the Profession’s Ethos
The online talk was a success! My fellow resource speaker was my best friend Dr. Lourdes Therese S. Reyes, an OB-gynecologist and a researcher in her field. We had a great question-and-answer session with participants from the Philippines and from another country in South Asia. We had more than 20 attendees, which is a lot, considering that it’s our first webinar and the topic is outside the comfort zone of most occupational therapists, myself included. So thank you very much, participants!
OT has much to contribute to the lives of pregnant mothers with medical conditions. Moreover, addressing maternal health is crucial for increasing the chances of healthy child development. Despite its importance, OT in pregnancy care is still an emerging area of practice. It is more established in the West, but it’s barely practiced here in the Philippines. In fact, I’ve never participated in a local seminar or workshop about this specialty prior to Upskill Street's webinar about it. I only got to attend one paper presentation about OT in maternal health at our national convention several years ago.
I’m happy that Dr. Reyes and I got to raise awareness about the importance of integrating OT in prenatal care. Moreover, we managed to do so without reducing the work of an occupational therapist to tasks that other professionals can do, such as distributing surveys or giving talks about the basics of diabetes during pregnancy or stuff like that. Don’t get me wrong, those are crucial in pregnancy care. It’s just that they’re not unique to OT.
Encouraging the Married and Single Ladies
True adult education must be holistic. Hence, Dr. Reyes and I also addressed certain life issues to prevent problems related to maternal health. For one, we assured the ladies that we’re not scaring them off from having children. Kids are great! They’re fun to be with and one day, they’ll experience things that their parents can only dream of if they were raised well. But because parenting is a high calling, one must prepare for it!
As part of their preparation for parenthood, we said that women must choose the right husbands with whom they can have children. We emphasized that sexual relations and procreation must be done within the bounds of marriage because premarital sex has many devastating consequences, especially if it will result in a pregnancy that both parties are not ready for. As healthcare providers, we’ve seen horror story after horror story of what happens when kids are born out of wedlock. Of course, we welcome clients from different backgrounds even if we don’t agree with their choices. It was our duty to tell our audience though that one of the best ways to promote maternal and child health is to be in a loving relationship with a spouse who is faithful to his marital vow to take care of you for the rest of your life.
Finally, one important takeaway from the webinar is actually for the single ladies. It is without a doubt that being single can be lonely. It’s even quite difficult because you’re left to bear additional responsibilities that others don’t have just because you’re the only one available to fulfill them. At the same time, people look down on you for being unattached! But guess what? Being married with kids can also be difficult and lonely! Pregnancy and parenthood involve many sacrifices that are unfathomable to us singles. Each path has its own advantages and disadvantages. What matters is that you make the most out of what you have for you to experience a full life.
Organizing this webinar was fun! More importantly, I learned many things not just about OT in prenatal care but also the nuts and bolts of spearheading a continuing education activity. I’ve helped out in organizing symposia and webinars before. But this is the first time that I did almost all of the work. Kudos also to my great friend Dr. Reyes for a job well done! I hope that we can continue to break down silos in healthcare while staying true to the ethos of our professions in order to give the best services to our patients.
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