A new dance craze is in town hoping to shake up approaches to treatment therapies for women with postpartum mood disorders.
Pam Dietrich, lecturer in the Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing and community health educator, is recruiting participants for a new study focused on how Nia dance can serve as one of several treatment interventions for women recovering from postpartum mood disorders.
Nia Dance is a form of exercise that promotes health and healing through body awareness and movement. Developed by Debbie and Carlos Rosas in the United States during the early 1980s, the body movement exercise blends martial arts, dance and healing arts.
Each class, the music and choreography focuses on a theme, such as stability and mobility, and encourages participants to follow their own natural time and rhythm.
Taking a more holistic approach to exercise, Nia dance focuses on exercising the mind, as well as the body.
Dance movement has gained popularity throughout the U.S. and Europe as a supplemental treatment to various psychotherapies. Dietrich is interested in how it can help women with postpartum mood disorders.
Following childbirth, it is estimated that up to 20 per cent of women experience significant and debilitating post-partum mood disorders and early intervention and social support has been shown to be essential to their recovery.
Dietrich says Nia dance is not unlike more traditional forms of therapies, such as art therapy, used to help women recover. One of the advantages of the exercise program is the added physical benefits of helping women lose weight after childbirth.
“It’s a very safe way to move their bodies and get physical activity,” she says. “They have fun with it.”
Although weight loss is a benefit to the program, it is not the primary goal.
Nia dance encourages fellowship and community, with many of the exercises prompting participants to get into circles, and promotes body awareness and the expression of emotions. Along with music and dance moves, visualization techniques are used to help women express themselves.
One of the goals of the research study is to find out what perceived benefits Nia dance has on the participant’s emotion, physical and spiritual health.
The women will complete the McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire at the beginning and end of their six-week series. Focus group interviews are conducted at the end of the six weeks.
Dietrich, co-ordinator of the Mother Reach Drop-In, has been teaching Nia dance to women at risk for, or experiencing symptoms of postpartum mood disorders at the centre.
“It’s helping people experience pleasure with movement,” she says. “Participants say they feel energized by the Nia dance.” The weekly one-hour sessions will be held Thursdays from 3-4 p.m. at the Mother Reach Drop-In Centre at Chalmers Presbyterian Church in London. Child minding and nutritious snacks are provided.
For more information about the study, contact Pam Dietrich at pdietri2@uwo.ca.
Dietrich, a licensed Nia dance instructor, is also bringing the program to the Western Student Recreation Centre membership. A free demonstration class will be held Wednesday, Sept. 30 in Studio 2. To register, contact membership services at 519-661-3090.