Description
Faculty and students in today’s maternal–newborn and pediatric nursing courses face a wide variety of issues and challenges. Courses are increasingly shortened, clinical experiences are more limited, and patients in hospitals are often more seriously ill. Time is precious for both students and faculty, and competence in nursing practice is essential. Changes in healthcare delivery stem from the Affordable Care Act, and new regulations offer challenges to the student and faculty member. The primary goal in this edition is to present key content in an accurate, readable format that helps students and faculty focus on what is important. This textbook helps students develop the skills and abilities they need now and in the future in an ever-changing healthcare environment. This is done through the Learning Outcomes listed at the beginning of each chapter and the Focus Your Study review feature at the end of each chapter, through the illustrations and photographs that clarify concepts more efficiently than words can do, and through the downloadable practice content at www.pearsonhighered.com/nursingresources, which depicts clinical situations and requires students to engage in critical thinking. In its structure, format, and delivery, this text provides a concise look at maternal–newborn, women’s health, and pediatric nursing.
Organization
The organization of the text reflects a time-saving approach. As educators and nurses, we know how difficult it is to teach everything that students need to learn in so little time. Consequently, we sought to reduce duplication in the text by carefully integrating relevant nursing topics and cross- referencing to other chapters. For example, three introductory chapters address concepts important for maternal, newborn, and child nursing. Chapter 1 discusses introductory concepts of family-centered care, health promotion, community and home care, evidence-based practice, and legal issues, as well as the complex ethical considerations related to reproductive decisions, stem cell research, terminating life-sustaining treatment, and organ transplantation issues. Chapter 2 addresses concepts that are important for culturally appropriate care for the entire family, such as cultural norms related to childbearing and childrearing, cultural assessment, and complementary and alternative therapies. Chapter 3, written by genetics nurse specialist Linda Ward, PhD, APRN, focuses on the field of genetics and genomics. Students will learn basic concepts and apply them in the critical specialties of maternal–newborn and child nursing. These concepts will be built upon in the students’ future careers as genetic causes of disease and treatments that influence the genome are increasingly developed and applied.
Subsequent chapters focus on reproductive issues and women’s health, pregnancy, birth processes, postpartum care, and newborn management. The maternal–newborn chapters begin with basic theory followed by nursing assessment and nursing care for essentially healthy women or newborns. Complications of a specific period appear in the last chapter or chapters of each section. The second half of the text transitions into the pediatric care chapters. The pediatric chapters begin with introductory concepts, such as growth and development, nutrition, assessment, health promotion for children ranging from newborn to adolescents, and care of the child in the community and hospital settings. Chapters 44 through 57 cover the nursing care of children with various disorders, organized by body system.