The handbook covers the vast majority of situations encountered in the many broad and varied settings of midwifery practice, from the normal, low-risk care of the mother and neonate, through to the more complex areas of working alongside obstetric or paediatric colleagues in high-risk pregnancy and birth situations. It provides all the information you will need to assist you when participating in complex care with confidence.

With a wealth of references, recommendations, and guidance from the authors' many years of experience this handbook will help you achieve the best possible results for your patients. The fundamentals of midwifery are divided into seven main sections, covering antenatal care; normal labour and birth; complicated labour and birth; postnatal care; family planning; care of the newborn; and infant feeding. It also gives information rarely covered in standard midwifery texts, including sexual health, complementary therapies, common blood values, investigations, and midwifery emergencies. Key interventions are laid out as algorithms to aid quick assimilation of the crucial facts.