Data to Decisions
Maternal Mental Health Workshop coming 2027
From Data to Defensible Decisions
When the evidence is conflicting, how do you make a clinical decision you can confidently defend?
Every day, healthcare professionals caring for pregnant women face difficult questions that rarely have simple answers.
- Should antidepressant treatment continue during pregnancy?
- Is the medication responsible for the newborn's symptoms, or could maternal illness be contributing?
- Why do studies seem to reach different conclusions?
- Which risks matter most?
- How do I counsel a patient when every option carries some degree of risk?
In perinatal medicine, uncertainty is unavoidable.
Good clinical practice is not about finding a risk-free decision. It is about making the best possible decision with the evidence available.
When every option carries both potential benefit and potential harm, good clinical decisions require more than evidence alone. They require a structured process for interpreting that evidence and applying it to the individual patient.
This workshop introduces that process.
From Evidence to Decisions
Research papers provide data.
Clinical guidelines provide recommendations.
Yet neither can fully answer the question every clinician eventually faces:
"What should I do for this patient?"
Obtaining more information does not always make clinical decisions easier. In fact, it can increase uncertainty when studies disagree, risks compete and no option is entirely free from harm.
 Making sound clinical decisions requires two complementary skills:
- Critically evaluating the evidence.
- Applying that evidence to the individual patient.
The WATCH → ARC Pathway brings these skills together into one practical method for clinical reasoning under uncertainty.
Step 1: WATCH
Critically Appraise the Evidence
Every clinical decision begins with the same question:
Can I trust the evidence I am using?
WATCH provides a structured framework for critically evaluating research before allowing it to influence patient care.
WATCH
W — Who was studied?
Who was included? Who was excluded? Who served as the comparison group?
A — Alternatives
Could other explanations account for the findings?
T — Transfer to Clinical Practice
Are the findings sufficiently robust and clinically relevant to inform practice?
C — Context
How should these findings be interpreted within the broader body of evidence and the individual patient's circumstances?
H — How was the study done?
How strong is the methodology? What biases and limitations should influence our confidence in the conclusions?
Rather than asking,
"What does this paper conclude?"
you will learn to ask,
"What are the strengths and limitations of this evidence and does it meaningfully inform the care of my patient?"
Step 2: ARC
Translate Evidence into Clinical Decisions
Evidence alone does not make clinical decisions.
Clinicians do.
Once we have critically evaluated the evidence using WATCH, we then apply it through the ARC Framework.
ARC provides a structured approach to integrating research findings with the realities of the patient sitting in front of you.
Together we will explore how to:
- Assess the clinical situation comprehensively.
- Analyse competing risks rather than considering risks in isolation.
- Identify protective factors and resilience.
- Balance maternal, fetal and neonatal considerations.
- Integrate evidence with patient values, preferences and circumstances.
- Reach decisions that are transparent, thoughtful and clinically defensible.
The goal is not certainty.
The goal is clarity.
Because clarity leads to confident clinical decisions.
WATCH is a practical critical-appraisal workshop designed for mothers, families, and healthcare professionals. It teaches you how to evaluate information, interpret research, and understand risk without needing a background in statistics or research methodology.
Rather than telling you what to think, WATCH teaches you how to think about information.
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The WATCH → ARC Workshop Series
This workshop is the first in a series designed to strengthen clinical reasoning in perinatal medicine.
Each workshop explores a different clinical challenge, but follows the same pathway:
WATCH — Critically evaluate the evidence.
ARC — Translate evidence into patient-centred clinical decisions.
Different topic.
Same method.
With every workshop, you will strengthen a transferable skill that extends well beyond perinatal psychopharmacology: the ability to make clear, structured and defensible clinical decisions when the answer is not obvious.
Who is this for:
Designed for healthcare professionals involved in the care of women during pregnancy and the postpartum period, including:
- Psychiatrists
- Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
- General Practitioners
- Family Physicians
- Paediatricians
- Midwives
- Clinical Psychologists
- Pharmacists
- Nurses
- Any clinician involved in counselling women about psychotropic medication during pregnancy.
What my clients have to say!

”
I have finally stopped spiralling!
-2025 Attendee

”
I didn’t need more information. I needed structure. I needed someone to show me how to THINK through it.
-2025Â Attendee

”
I found the content was expertly curated, highly informative & addressed the complexities of medication management during pregnancy and the postpartum. I especially appreciated the balance between evidence-based guidance and practical case examples which made the material both accessible and clinically relevant.
-2025 Attendee
Led by Dr. Elsa du Toit
25 years in medicine
15 years focused on perinatal psychiatry
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Dr Elsa du Toit is a specialist psychiatrist with more than 25 years of clinical experience and over 15 years dedicated exclusively to perinatal mental health.
Her work focuses on helping healthcare professionals strengthen one of the most valuable clinical skills of all: making thoughtful, evidence-informed decisions when certainty is impossible.
She developed the WATCH → ARC Pathway to provide a practical framework for interpreting evidence, analysing risk and applying both to the care of individual patients.
