Patient and Family Resources
Integrative Care

Contact Us

Phone: 513-803-0071 (Inpatient care only)

Hours: Monday – Sunday, 8 am – 4:30 pm (except for holidays)

Integrative Care at a Glance

Integrative healthcare combines conventional medicine with evidence-informed, therapeutic and lifestyle practices that promote comfort, healing, and wellbeing, using a whole person perspective.

Cincinnati Children’s is home to one of the country’s largest and most experienced pediatric integrative care teams. This team partners with inpatient medical teams to go beyond traditional treatments in caring for the whole person – body, mind, spirit. The approaches they use are based on research and can help to manage symptoms, including:

Pain
Anxiety
Nausea
Stress
Difficulty sleeping
Fatigue

The Team and Their Care

The team includes registered nurses (RNs) and licensed massage therapists (LMTs) with ongoing, advanced clinical training and certifications. Their care is person-centered, relationship-based, and is focused on creating an optimal healing environment for patients and families.

Below are some of our approaches to enhance care and promote healing:

Clinical Aromatherapy: use of essential oils to ease distress and promote rest and a sense of wellbeing.
Guided Imagery: use of the power of imagination and thoughts to support coping, comfort, and wellbeing.
Healing Touch, Reiki: energy-based therapies to ease pain, and promote rest using gentle or non-touch practices that support the body’s own energy pathways.
Mindfulness/Mindful Practices: use of practices such as mindful breathing, journaling, meditation, gratitude, and yoga, to promote comfort and support rest and wellbeing.
Relaxation Breathing: use of gentle belly breathing or mindful breathing to promote relaxation and rest.

Acupressure: use of gentle pressure applied to specific points on the body that are understood to support health.
Craniosacral Therapy: use of light touch to assess and gently relieve tension within the central nervous system, easing pain and promoting the body’s own healing processes.
Reflexology: use of gentle pressure applied to areas of the feet, hands, or ears that are understood to support health.
Relaxation Yoga: use of gentle poses and body movement, combined with a focus on the breath and connection to self, to decrease stress and promote relaxation.
Therapeutic/Comfort Massage: use of gentle massage to decrease pain and stiffness, improve circulation, and promote rest and wellbeing.

Accessing Integrative Care

Integrative Care is available free of charge for patients in the StarShine program, and for patients who are admitted to the following facilities:

Our Burnet Campus in Cincinnati
Our Liberty Campus in Liberty Township
Our College Hill Residential Behavioral Health Program

Any Cincinnati Children’s team member may reach out to our team if they feel a patient might benefit from integrative care. Patients and family members may also request our care by asking their nurse to contact us.

When available, a member of our team will first check with the patient’s care team, and then, if appropriate, will:

Reach out to ask if you are interested in learning more about our care.
After confirming your agreement, assess the patient to determine if integrative care is appropriate; if it is, create a plan of care in partnership with you to help ease discomfort and promote healing and wellbeing.

Division of Child Life and Integrative Care

The Division of Child Life & Integrative Care is committed to creating an environment that fosters health and healing. We believe in caring for people from the perspective of wholeness, understanding that people feel better when they receive care for mind, body, and spirit.