The perfect balance of maternal and child nursing care in a new textbook conceived and written to be a combination textbook! An extensive review by nursing educators ensures that it offers just the right depth and breadth of coverage for students in today's maternity/pediatric courses. Its unique emphasis on optimizing outcomes, evidence-based practice, and research supports the goal of caring for women, families and children not only in traditional hospital settings, but also wherever they live, work, study, or play. Clear, concise, and easy to follow, the content is organized around four major themes, holistic care, critical thinking, validating practice, and tools for care that help students to learn and apply the material. AJN Book of the Year2009