Appropriate as a core text as well as a reference for a maternity nursing course. Nurses working with childbearing families today face a variety of new challenges, including shortened lengths of stay, the trend toward greater use of community-based and home care, downsizing and mergers of health care systems. The Fifth Edition, formerly titled Maternal-Newborn Nursing Care: The Nurse, the Family, and the Community, continues to emphasize the central role played by nurses working with today's childbearing families.