Healing Touch is a relaxing and nurturing biofield energy therapy.  Utilizing the hands of the practitioner, it assists to balance the human energy system of the recipient on the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual levels.  It is a simple but powerful modality offered by personnel trained in Healing Touch.  Studies have indicated a reduction in anxiety, stress, and pain of hospitalized patients who received Healing Touch.  It supports the body’s natural ability to heal and works in harmony with standard medical care.  The purpose of this poster presentation is to demonstrate the application of Healing Touch and its benefits to patients, co-workers and trained personnel.  It is currently being introduced into five perinatal units of an academic medical facility in Southern California.
            The integration of Healing Touch, a complementary therapy, with conventional medical practices is becoming more popular and prevalent in hospital settings.  The nursing diagnosis of “energy field disturbance” from the North American Nursing Diagnosis Association applies to patients who would benefit from Healing Touch.  Energy field disturbance is identified as a disruption in the flow of energy surrounding a person’s being that results in disharmony of the body, mind and/or spirit.  Healing Touch is an independent nursing intervention and does not require a physician’s order nor does it require informed consent.  However, the Healing Touch provider must have the permission of the patient.  The personnel who provide Healing Touch in the hospital setting have completed at least Level One of the Healing Touch certification process.
            There are several studies of Healing Touch and its effect on chronic pain, orthopedic pain, post-operative recovery, cardiovascular surgery outcomes, and pain, fatigue and emotional well-being of cancer patients.  There are few studies on the efficacy of Healing Touch in a perinatal setting, and this fact highlights the importance of bringing Healing Touch to a hospital perinatal setting.  Utilizing a hospital surgical unit model in place since 1993 for peri-operative care and wound healing, we are applying Healing Touch to all of our perinatal units in an academic medical facility.  Patients in our perinatal units include: 1) women in the antepartum stage; 2) women in labor and who birth vaginally as well as by cesarean section; 3) women in the postpartum stage;  and 4) well newborns and newborns in a neonatal intensive care setting. 

Indications for the use of Healing Touch in a hospital perinatal setting include pain (labor, post-operatively, postpartum, or newborns undergoing painful procedures), cesarean and tubal ligation incisions, anxiety and tension (with illness, labor, breastfeeding or extended hospitalization for antepartum complications), and spiritual distress (fetal demise or other unwanted outcome).  At our academic medical facility in Southern California, the integration of Healing Touch into all of the stages of the perinatal experience is assisting a broad spectrum of patients to achieve their optimal health, balance and well-being during the perinatal experience by measuring stress, anxiety and pain before and after Healing Touch.  Benefits to the practitioners as well as to co-workers who receive Healing Touch will also be presented.