Midwifery & Women's Health

The delivery of high quality and equitable care for both mothers and newborns is complex and requires efforts across many sectors. The United States spends more on childbirth than any other country in the world, yet outcomes are worse than other high-resource countries, and even worse for Black and Native American women. There are a variety of factors that influence childbirth, including social determinants such as income, educational levels, access to care, financing, transportation, structural racism and geographic variability in birth settings. It is important to reevaluate the United States' approach to maternal and newborn care through the lens of these factors across multiple disciplines. Birth Settings in America: Outcomes, Quality, Access, and Choice reviews and evaluates maternal and newborn care in the United States, the epidemiology of social and clinical risks in pregnancy and childbirth, birth settings research, and access to and choice of birth settings.

Since childbirth became a medicalized - and usually hospitalized - event a century ago, women's and families' psychosocial needs have been relegated to a somewhat peripheral role within the clinically focussed hierarchy of medical care. This text reinstates psychosocial issues as a primary focus of care, together with clinical excellence. Family-centred care is a familiar phrase in today's maternity services, with professional guidelines and hospital policies including the term in their care protocols; however, few definitions, and no specific standards, for family-centred care exist. While all caregivers and care services are likely to define their care as sensitive to women's needs, and family-centred, the actual implementation of a family-centred approach - despite it being a current fashion in care - is still inadequate. This book clearly defines family-centred perinatal care, and outlines how truly family-centred care can, and should, be implemented, and how, and where, this has been done.

With easy-to-read coverage of nursing care for women and newborns, Foundations of Maternal-Newborn & Women's Health Nursing, 6th Edition shows how to provide safe, competent care in the clinical setting. Evidence-based guidelines and step-by-step instructions for assessments and interventions help you quickly master key skills and techniques. Also emphasized is the importance of understanding family, communication, culture, client teaching, and clinical decision making. Written by specialists in maternity nursing, Sharon Smith Murray and Emily Slone McKinney, this text reflects the latest QSEN competencies, and the accompanying Evolve website includes review questions to prepare you for the NCLEX® exam! Nursing Care Plans help you apply the nursing process to clinical situations. Procedure boxes provide clear instructions for performing common maternity skills, with rationales for each step. UNIQUE! Therapeutic Communications boxes present realistic nurse-patient dialogues, identifying communication techniques and showing to respond when encountering communication blocks. Communication Cues offer tips for interpreting patients’ and families’ verbal and nonverbal communication. Critical Thinking exercises focus on clinical situations designed to test your skills in prioritizing and critical thinking. Updated drug guides list important indications, adverse reactions, and nursing considerations for the most commonly used medications. Check Your Reading helps you assess your mastery of key content. Critical to Remember boxes highlight and summarize need-to-know information. Want to Know boxes provide guidelines for successful client education. Glossary provides definitions of all key terms. NEW! Safety Alerts help you develop competencies related to QSEN and safe nursing practice. NEW! Unfolding case studies help you apply what you’ve learned to practice. UPDATED Evidence-Based Practice boxes highlight the latest research and the most current QSEN (Quality and Safety Education for Nurses) practice guidelines for quality care. UPDATED content includes the late preterm infant, fetal heart rate pattern identification, obesity in the pregnant woman, and the QSEN competencies.