Wingate launches free clinic for new moms and babies

WINGATE UNIVERSITY

Wingate University's Women, Mothers, Babies initiative is a free clinic that helps women navigate the days after giving birth.

It’s not uncommon for new mothers to experience difficulties after giving birth: pain or discomfort, difficulty feeding their newborn, postpartum depression.

There’s help through Wingate University’s Doctor of Occupational Therapy program.

In conjunction with an established pro bono clinic for adults, the program has started Women, Mothers, Babies, or WoMB, a free clinic to help women in the early days of their child’s life. Clinic days and times are yet to be determined.

Dr. Patee Tomsic, one of four OTD faculty members who established the clinic, with help from a $10,000 grant from Foundation for a Healthy Carolina, said that occupational therapists’ strength is being able to help with such a wide variety of problems.

“We are such a holistic profession that we are able to help in that holistic way,” she said. “There are a lot of things you can experience as a mother, and we can help with almost all of them.”

Assistant professors Tomsic, Dr. Wynnet Sinclair and Dr. Reeti Douglas and associate professor Dr. Stacey Caplan came up with the idea for the WoMB clinic. They all have experience with maternity-related occupational therapy.

Sinclair has been providing pelvic-floor therapy for years, helping women who experience incontinence or pelvic pain.

Caplan, Tomsic and Douglas all have extensive experience with infant and child development, including specialties working with premature infants, feeding difficulties, torticollis and plagiocephaly, and other physical conditions. All four are becoming certified as lactation counselors.

Other common problems new mothers experience include back and joint pain, such as carpal tunnel syndrome as well as depression and anxiety. Wingate OTD faculty can also provide developmental help for infants.

“Maybe the baby is a couple of months old and they aren’t meeting some of those early milestones,” Tomsic said. “They can come to us and we can screen the child and provide some education and intervention there.”

The Foundation for a Healthy Carolina grant has gone toward supplies, mostly for lactation support, and continuing education for faculty members, such as in the lactation and mental-health areas.

Students will have hands-on and guided learning opportunities, but not quite to the extent of the student-run pro bono clinic offered by Wingate OTD, because of the intimate nature of the treatments. But even observing Wingate faculty members in action will be helpful to students.

“It very much supports their learning in that if these are specialty areas that they’re interested in pursuing in their career, they will have this experience already,” Tomsic said.

Two Wingate students have also been instrumental in establishing the clinic, as part of their capstone projects.

Tomsic said Wingate OTD would like to provide group education in addition to the clinic.

“Let’s say there are five women who are interested in learning more about the ins and outs of breastfeeding or common strategies for strengthening the pelvic floor,” she said. “We could serve them with a community education class.”

Tomsic is just ready to bring in more patients.

“It’s just a matter of them finding out about us and making it over here,” she said.

Referrals to, or inquiries about, the clinic can be made via email to [email protected] or by phone at (704) 233-8972.

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