Topics in Perinatal Education

The following courses are valuable to perinatal health care across the practice continuum and are available on various platforms.

Breastfeeding

But I Don't Do Maternity Care! Specialist Physician Management of the Breastfeeding Patient online course

This 10 to 15-minute module will provide medical and surgical specialist physicians with the information and tools to be able to offer breastfeeding support and medical management in British Columbia.

Latching on: How Family Physicians Can Support Breastfeeding Patients online course

Breastfeeding is important for the lifelong health and wellbeing of both parent and baby. As a care provider you have an important influence on a parent's infant feeding decisions. Check out our redesigned and updated online modules to learn more about how you can best support breastfeeding families. There are two modules available, with content that has been tailored to your specific needs as a primary care provider or specialist physician. This course is tailored content for primary care providers.

Gender-Based Violence

According to the World Health Organization, “a health care provider is likely to be the first professional contact for survivors of intimate partner violence or sexual assault,” two of the most common forms of gender-based violence.

This free four-course training series "Gender-Based Violence: We Can All Help Improving the Health Sectors Response‎" will help you to understand, identify, respond to, and address gender-based violence. As health sector workers, we all have a role to play in supporting those who have experienced or are living with gender-based violence.

Healthy Pregnancy Weight Gain

5As of Healthy Pregnancy Weight Gain online course

This is a free short online continuing medical education course designed for family physicians, midwives, nurse practitioners, obstetricians, and dietitians offering antenatal care in Canada. This course will introduce you to an office-based framework to help you discuss and manage gestational weight gain with your patients.

The 5As of Healthy Pregnancy Weight Gain Toolkit is intended to help primary care practitioners discuss and manage gestational weight with their patients. The 5As (Ask, Assess, Advise, Agree, and Assist) framework ensures sensitive, realistic, measurable, and sustainable obesity management strategies that focus on improving health and well-being, rather than simply aiming for numbers on a scale.

You can order the toolkit that includes a practitioner guide, practitioner checklist, readiness ruler, and desk reminder.

Kangaroo Care

Are you aware that Kangaroo Care has been shown to improve preterm infant growth and development with physiologic and immunologic benefits? To learn more about Kangaroo Care as a standard of care for preterm infants and parent-infant skin-to-skin contact, take the "Strengthening Kangaroo Care for Preterm Infants in British Columbia: Online Course", a self-paced and interactive course developed in partnership with UBC Continuing Professional Development.

This course is divided into four lessons:

Introduction to Kangaroo Care
The Evidence for Kangaroo Care
How to Safely Practice Kangaroo Care
Strengthening Kangaroo Care in NICUs

Mental Health

Journey to Perinatal Wellbeing: eTools and Resources to Identify and Support Women with Perinatal Depression and Anxiety is an online course for health care providers to support the capacity to identify and respond to perinatal depression and anxiety. The course will help build skills and expertise to screen, assess and effectively intervene with families where a parent (or parents) are experiencing perinatal depression and anxiety.

The course contains an introductory module, four lesson modules, and a short graded test module. The estimated time for completion of the course is 2.5 to 3 hours.

Newborn Screening

Whether you are a medical lab assistant, a nurse, or a midwife, you are an integral part of the newborn screening team. The "Newborn Screening Blood Spot Collection Online Training Tool"online module will help you prepare to take blood collections and covers topics such as equipment, techniques, and supporting families. The intent is to help new staff learn about the newborn screening process, and be a refresher for existing staff. With staff all over BC successfully completing this course, the primary goals are to improve the blood spot card quality and to reduce the need for repeat collection. The secondary goals are to reduce procedural pain and support breastfeeding and the Baby-Friendly Initiative.

This online training tool is a quality improvement initiative developed by the BC Newborn Screening Program in collaboration with BC Women's Hospital, BC Children's Hospital, BC Agency for Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Child Health BC, and Perinatal Services BC. Special acknowledgements and thank you to the families who participated with interviews, photography, and filming as part of this production.

Substance Use

The "Perinatal Substance Use in Pregnancy" modules were designed in partnership with UBC Faculty of Medicine’s Division of Continuing Professional Development (UBC CPD), Perinatal Services BC (PSBC) and BC Women’s Hospital & Health Centre (BCW).

The aim of this group of modules is to provide education and support for evidence-based, woman-centred, trauma-informed, and culturally-safe care for women with substance use disorders and infants exposed to substances during pregnancy.

The course has been designed for family physicians, obstetricians, midwives, neonatologists, registered nurses, and pediatricians and is divided into four modules:

Principles of Care
Care during Pregnancy and Labour
Care of the Newborn Exposed to Substance Use during Pregnancy (including Eat, Sleep, Console - core neonatal curriculum).
Supporting Newborn and Caregiver at Discharge for Optimal Care at Home.

These combined modules, and particularly the "Care of the Newborn Exposed to Substance Use during Pregnancy", can act as foundational education for Eat, Sleep, Console, (ESC), but also includes other relevant and related content.

Provincial Health Services Authority