Women’s health care encompasses reproductive health care and the unique physical, psychologic, and social needs of women throughout their life span. The specialties of women’s health and maternity nursing offer challenges and opportunities. Nurses are challenged to assimilate knowledge and develop the technical and critical thinking skills needed to be reflective practitioners. Each woman, with her individual needs that must be identified and met, presents a challenge. However, the opportunities are sufficiently extraordinary to make this one of the most fulfilling specialties of nursing practice.

The goal of nursing education is to prepare today’s students to meet the challenges of tomorrow. This preparation must extend beyond mastery of facts and skills. Nurses must be able to provide safe, quality, client-centered care through the combination of clinical reasoning skills, technical competence, and compassionate caring. They must address the physiologic as well as the psychosocial needs of their clients. They must look beyond the condition and see the woman as an individual with distinctive needs. Yet they must consider her needs in the context of family-centered care, realizing and acknowledging the influence and involvement of family members and significant others. Above all, nurses must strive to improve practice on the basis of sound evidence-based information. In a time of dwindling financial resources for
health care, nurses can use evidence-based practice to produce measurable outcomes that can validate their unique and necessary role in the health care delivery system.
Maternity & Women’s Health Care was designed to provide students with accurate and up-to-date information so that they can develop the knowledge and skills needed to become clinically competent, to think critically, and to attain the necessary sensitivity to become caring nurses. Maternity & Women’s Health Care has been a leading maternity nursing text since it was first published in 1977. We are proud of the continued support this text has received. With this eleventh edition we have a responsibility to continue this leading tradition.


This edition has been revised and refined in response to comments and suggestions from educators, clinicians, and students. It includes the most accurate, current, and clinically relevant information available. We have had the assistance of expert faculty, nurse clinicians, and specialists from other health disciplines who authored, reviewed, and revised the text. Many exciting updates and additions will be noted throughout the book; they demonstrate the various dimensions of women’s health care and areas of rapid and complex changes such as genetics, fetal assessment, and alternative therapies. However, we have retained the underlying philosophy that has been the strength of previous editions: our belief that pregnancy and childbirth and developmental changes in a woman’s life are natural processes. We have also
retained a base in physiology and a strong, integrated focus on the family and on evidence-based practice. The text is also used as a reference for the practicing nurse. The most recent recommendations based on evidence from research and clinical experts have been included from professional organizations such as the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses; the National Association of Neonatal Nurses; the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; the American Academy of Pediatrics; the
American Diabetes Association; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the U.S. Preventive Health Services Task Force. The text can be used to prepare for certification courses and for review in graduate programs of study. The text and its electronic resources would be an excellent reference on the nursing unit