Highlighting the experiences of midwives who provide care to women opting outside of guidelines in the pursuit of physiological birth, Claire Feeley looks at the impact on midwives themselves, and explores how teams and organisations can support or discourage the promotion of women's birth choices. This book investigates the processes, experiences, and sociocultural-political influences upon midwives who support women's alternative birthing choice and argues for a shift in perspective from notions of an individual's professional responsibility to deliver woman-centred care, to a broader, collective responsibility. The book begins by exploring the normal birth debates to demonstrate how hegemonic birth discourse and maternity practices have detrimentally affected physiological birth rates, as well as the wellbeing of women who opt outside of maternity guidelines. It also provides real life examples of how midwives can facilitate a range of birthing decisions within mainstream midwifery services. The second part develops a new model to explore how a midwife's socio-political context can significantly mediate or exacerbate the vulnerability, conflict and stigmatisation that they may experience as a result of promoting alternative birth choices. Part three further explores the implications of the model, looking at how team and organisational culture can be developed to better support women and midwives, making recommendations for a systems approach to improving maternity services. Discussing the invisible nature of midwifery work, what it means to deliver woman-centred care, and the challenges and benefits of doing so, this is a thought-provoking read for all midwives and future midwives. It is also an important contribution to interprofessional concerns around workforce development, sustainability, moral distress and compassion in health and social care.

The death of a baby is one of the most painful experiences anyone can imagine. This practical, compassionate text guides professionals in providing the best possible care through the physical and emotional pain of a pregnancy loss from early miscarriage to neonatal death, enabling patients and their families to grieve. Written by two professionals with extensive experience in the field, the book inspires confidence for those confronted with this challenging task. It focuses on common issues that inhibit good care and addresses the traditionally difficult topics. Healthcare staff assisting patients during this time often require support of their own and this is also addressed with constructive, inspirational approaches and ideas for professional training. Perinatal Loss: a handbook for working with women and their families offers insights, information and support for managing pregnancy loss for all professionals and students including nurses, sonographers, midwives, doctors (including obstetricians and general practitioners), chaplains and morticians. 'This is an important and warmly welcomed book which thoroughly endorses the key aims of Sands (Stillbirth & Neonatal Death Society). In particular, it demonstrates a forceful commitment to improving care for bereaved families whilst acknowledging the difficult task that staff undertake when caring for them. This handbook encompasses all aspects of perinatal loss, giving due care and attention to the many different circumstances and exploring the thoughts and feelings which are experienced when a baby dies at any gestation.' From the Foreword by Julia Gray

Jennifer Worth's tales of being a midwife in 1950s London, now a major BBC TV series.

Jennifer Worth came from a sheltered background when she became a midwife in the Docklands in the 1950s. The conditions in which many women gave birth just half a century ago were horrifying, not only because of their grimly impoverished surroundings, but also because of what they were expected to endure. But while Jennifer witnessed brutality and tragedy, she also met with amazing kindness and understanding, tempered by a great deal of Cockney humour. She also earned the confidences of some whose lives were truly stranger, more poignant and more terrifying than could ever be recounted in fiction.

Attached to an order of nuns who had been working in the slums since the 1870s, Jennifer tells the story not only of the women she treated, but also of the community of nuns (including one who was accused of stealing jewels from Hatton Garden) and the camaraderie of the midwives with whom she trained.

Funny, disturbing and incredibly moving, Jennifer's stories bring to life the colourful world of the East End in the 1950s.

This book includes the key findings and recommendations of the Confidential Enquiries summarised in a clear, simple and accessible way, emphasising the implications for clinical practice.A clear, concise summary of the key points of the Confidential Enquiries Links findings with clinical practice, providing examples of clinical scenarios An essential purchase for every health professional involved in maternity care

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States and around the world. Major risk factors for CVD result from poor lifestyle habits and practices, but the area of lifestyle medicine has emerged to help clinicians and their patients understand the power of positive lifestyle habits and actions. Written by cardiologist and lifestyle medicine pioneer, Dr. James Rippe, Integrating Lifestyle Medicine in Cardiovascular Health and Disease Prevention introduces the principles of lifestyle medicine with the practice of cardiology to help lower the risk of heart disease and, if already present, assist in its treatment. This book provides evidence-based information on both the prevention and treatment of CVD through lifestyle measures such as regular physical activity, sound nutrition, weight management and avoidance of tobacco products. This information aids physicians and patients to better understand multiple linkages between poor habits and practices, employing them with associated behavioral techniques to lessen the likelihood of developing CVD. Features: Summarizes major issues in CVD including heart attack, stroke, atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure, lipid abnormalities and obesity. Provides protocols for overcoming a sedentary lifestyle and using lifestyle medicine techniques to optimize brain health. Empowers clinicians with vital information for consultations on the power of lifestyle medicine practices, both to treat symptoms if already present or to prevent major components of CVD from developing in the future. Written for practitioners at all levels, this user-friendly volume in the Lifestyle Medicine series is valuable to practitioners in general medicine or subspecialty practices including lifestyle medicine and cardiology.

This book presents the contemporary history and dynamics of Mexican midwifery - professional, (post)modern or autonomous, traditional and Indigenous - as profoundly political and embedded in differing societal stratifications. By situated politics, the authors refer to various networks, spaces and territories, which are also constructed by the midwives. By politically situated, the authors refer to various intersections, unsettled relations and contexts in which Mexican midwives are positioned. Examining Mexican midwiferies in depth, the volume sharpens the focus on the worlds in which midwives are profoundly immersed as agents in generating and participating in movements, alliances, health professions, communities, homes, territories and knowledges. The chapters provide a complex panorama of midwives in Mexico with an array of insights into their professional and political autonomy, (post)coloniality, body-territoriality, the challenges of defining midwifery, and above all, into the ways in which contemporary Mexican midwiferies relate to a complex set of human rights. The book will be of interest to a range of scholars from anthropology, sociology, politics, global health, gender studies, development studies, and Latin American studies, as well as to midwives and other professionals involved in childbirth policy and practice.

Edge Entanglements traverses the borderlands of the community "mental health" sector by "plugging in" to concepts offered by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari along with work from Mad Studies, postcolonial, and feminist scholars. Barlott and Setchell demonstrate what postqualitative inquiry can do, surfacing the transformative potential of freely-given relationships between psychiatrised people and allies in the community. Thinking with theory, the authors map the composition and generative processes of freely-given, ally relationships. Edge Entanglements surfaces how such relationships can unsettle constraints of the mental health sector and produce creative possibilities for psychiatrised people. Affectionately creating harmonies between theory and empirical "data," the authors sketch ally relationships in ways that move. Allyship is enacted through micropolitical processes of becoming-complicit: ongoing movement towards taking on the struggle of another as your own. Barlott and Setchell's work offers both conceptual and practical insights into postqualitative experimentation, relationship-oriented mental health practice, and citizen activism that unsettles disciplinary boundaries. Ongoing, disruptive movements on the margins of the mental health sector - such as freely-given relationships - offer opportunities to be otherwise. Edge Entanglements is for people whose lives and practices are precariously interconnected with the mental health sector and are interested in doing things differently. This book is likely to be useful for novice and established (applied) new material and/or posthumanist scholars interested in postqualitative, theory-driven research; health practitioners seeking alternative or radical approaches to their work; and people interested in citizen advocacy, activism, and community organising in/out of the mental health sector.

Focusing on reproductive and sexual justice, this important book explores in detail both the challenges that trans people face when negotiating reproductive and sexual health in restrictive social contexts, and their agency in advocating for change. Chapters cover a breadth of topics such as intimacy, sexual violence, reproductive intentions, sexuality education, oncology, and pregnancy, introducing readers to the latest research in the field as well as key emerging concepts. The authors identify core principles for trans reproductive and sexual justice, providing a broad overview of what is currently succeeding and what can be built on going into the future. Trans Reproductive and Sexual Health offers a comprehensive exploration that is essential reading for academics and students in psychology, sociology, gender studies, and related areas, as well as clinicians and policy makers, offering direct implications for professional audiences working in health and social care.

Mindfulness in the Birth Sphere draws together and critically appraises a raft of emerging research around mindfulness in healthcare, looking especially at its relevance to pregnancy and childbirth. Divided into three parts, this reflective book: * Investigates the phenomena of mindfulness through discussions of neuroscience, an indigenous worldview and research methods. * Develops the concept of mindfulness for use in practice with women/and babies across the continuum of childbirth. It includes chapters on birth environments, intrapartum care, mental health, fertility, breastfeeding and parenting among others. * Explores mindfulness as a tool for birth practitioners and educators, promoting self-care, resilience and compassion. Each chapter discusses specific research, evidence and experiences of mindfulness, including practical advice and an example of a mindfulness practice. This is an essential read for all those interested in mindfulness in connection to pregnancy and childbirth, including midwives, doulas, doctors and birth activists, whether involved in practice, research or education.

This book explores two public sector scandals in the UK, drawing on Max Weber's thought on 'the iron cage' to understand how these cases of patient-neglect in NHS hospitals and failures by police and social workers to address the organised sexual exploitation of young girls occurred. Through examination of the management failures and institutional vulnerabilities, and with attention to the trends of bureaucratisation and rationalisation that characterised both scandals, it reveals the explanatory power of Weber's thought, developing a theoretical model that updates and extends Weber's work in light of the cases discussed. The final chapter examines the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and highlights how the focus on a rational techno-medical solution to the pandemic offered by the vaccines together with bureaucratic expansion has created an authoritarian and totalitarian society which represents the ultimate realisation of Weber's iron cage. Showing that ordinary people, including professionals, are still trapped in the 'iron cage', it will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory, as well as those providing training and working within the caring and service professions of policing, social work and nursing.

This book provides a theoretically and empirically grounded examination of the struggle for maternity care in contemporary Russia, framed by changes to the healthcare system and the roles of its participants after socialism. The chapters consider multiple perspectives and interactions between women and professionals and the structural and institutional pressures they face when striving for better conditions and treatment. Russian maternity care is characterized by the vivid mix of legacy of Soviet paternalism and medicalization, bureaucratic principles of state regulation (with high level of centralization and lack of professional autonomy) and global neoliberal tendencies. Maternity care professionals have to satisfy not only the growing needs and demands of women, but also deal with increasing state regulative control, market demands and new professional standards of care. Navigating these multiple and various challenges, maternity providers have to perform in multiple roles, bridge the organizational gaps and inconsistencies. Thus, the field of struggle for good care becomes not only professional, but political one. Highlighting the opportunities and barriers for good care in the context of post-socialist Russia, this book will be of particular interest to medical anthropologists and sociologists as well as midwives and other health professionals.

--This text shows students how to organize their work and write gracefully. --Vivid examples show students effective re-writes of example passages. --Classroom and student homework assignments are provided on the book's web site. --Provides examples from both qualitative and quantitative research. --At 150 pages the book is an effective core text for any social science writing course, but brief enough to be assigned in large required courses like social science research methods in sociology and in fields like education, criminology, allied medical health, and other fields where effective research presentation is an important career skill.

This new edition of Sarah Franklin's classic monograph on the development of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) includes two entirely new chapters reflecting on the relevance of the book's findings in the context of the past two decades and providing a 'state-of-the-art' review of the field today. Over the past 25 years, both the assisted conception industry and the academic field of reproductive studies have grown enormously. IVF, in particular, is belatedly becoming recognised as one of the most influential technologies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with a far-reaching set of implications that have to date been underestimated, understudied and under-reported. This pioneering text was the first to explore the emergence of commercial IVF in the United Kingdom, where the technique was originally developed. During the 1980s, the British Parliament devised a unique system of comprehensive national regulation of assisted reproduction amidst fractious public and media debate over IVF and embryo research. Franklin chronicles these developments and explores their significance in relation to classic anthropological debates about the meanings of kinship, gender and the 'biological facts' of parenthood. Drawing on extensive personal interviews with women and couples undergoing IVF, as well as ethnographic fieldword in early IVF clinics, the book explores the unique demands of the IVF technique. In richly detailed chapters, it documents the 'topsy-turvy' world of IVF, and how the experience of undergoing IVF changes its users in ways they had not anticipated. Franklin argues that such experiences reveal a crucial feature of translational biomedical procedures more widely - namely, that these are 'hope technologies' that paradoxically generate new uncertainties and risks in the very space of their supposed resolution. The final chapter closely engages with the 'hope technology' concept, as well as the idea of 'having to try' and uses these frames to link contemporary reproductive studies to core sociological and anthropological arguments about economy, society and technology. In the context of rapid fertility decline and huge growth in the fertility industry, this volume is even more relevant today than when it was first published at the dawn of what Franklin calls the era of 'iFertility'. Embodied Progress is an essential read for all social science academics and students with an interested in the burgeoning new field of reproductive studies. It is also a valuable resource for practitioners working in the fields of reproductive health, biomedicine and policy.

Providing essential knowledge and understanding that midwives, health visitors, nursery nurses and lay birth and early parenting educators need to deliver effective and evidence-based education to all new parents and families, this book explores key issues in perinatal education. Bringing together research and thinking around preconception and birth, infant sleep, nutrition, attachment and development, it also includes chapters on topics of growing importance, such as preconception education, LGBTQ+ parent education, the role of parenting advice, parent education across different cultures and teaching antenatal classes online. Each chapter includes a key knowledge update and pointers for practice. This wide-ranging and practical text is an important read for all those supporting new parents from pregnancy through the first 1000 days, especially those delivering antenatal care and birth and early parenting education.

In just the past decade, the emergence of digital health has finally become palpable. Enhanced by the pandemic, social justice events, and planetary health urgency, Realizing Digital Health - Bold Challenges and Opportunities for Nursing explores that evolution with a focus on capturing the current state of digital health. Anchored in an introduction to digital health, new technologies, opportunities, and challenges are described. Consideration of the opportunities and challenges of digital health calls for specific attention to ethical considerations. This book includes a current state synopsis of healthcare in the USA, with the inclusion of specific implications for nursing leaders and executives. Engagement of the people (patients, families, communities) working in partnership to enhance health is described. Information management and the necessary definition and access to data are discussed with a particular explication of the function of information management and operational decision-making. The challenges and learnings related to informatics drawn from the experiences of leaders in large health systems shed insight into the current state of informatics-enabled digital health and healthcare. The global example of the integration of technology, nursing, and health systems expands our knowledge of the current state as well as explores possibilities. This book concludes with a commitment to and description of the current state of teamwork and the integral role/functions within informatics, nursing, and healthcare. This book provides the reader with a succinct overview of digital technologies, a reality-anchored description of the current state in the USA and globally and highlights the core foundation and integration of informatics and information management. This book stimulates thought and actions to advance digital health within a full partnership among the people, organizations, systems, and global imperatives including planetary survival. This book lifts up the next era calling for full teamwork, collaboration, and partnership as we emerge into a true global community. Nursing and Informatics for the 21st Century - Embracing a Digital World, 3rd Edition is comprised of four books which can be purchased individually: Book 1: Realizing Digital Health - Bold Challenges and Opportunities for Nursing Book 2: Nursing Education and Digital Health Strategies Book 3: Innovation, Technology, and Applied Informatics for Nurses Book 4: Nursing in an Integrated Digital World that Supports People, Systems, and the Planet

In Nursing in an Integrated Digital World that Supports People, Systems, and the Planet, the leading-edge innovators in digital health applications, global thought leaders, and multinational, cooperative research initiatives are woven together against the backdrop of health equity and policy-setting bodies, such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization. As the authors prepared this book, the world is struggling with the core issues of access to care, access to needed medical equipment and supplies, and access to vaccines. This access theme is reflected throughout the policy and world health chapters with an emphasis on how this COVID-19 pandemic is exposing the fissures, divides, unfairness, and unpreparedness that are in play across our globe. Sustainability and global health policy are linked to the new digital technologies in the chapters that illustrate healthcare delivery modalities that nurse innovators are developing, leading, and using to deliver care to hard-to-reach populations for better population health. A trio of chapters focus on the underlying need for standards to underlie nursing care in order to capture the data needed to enable new science and knowledge discoveries. The authors give particular attention to the cautions, potential for harm, and biases that the artificial intelligence technologies of algorithms and machine learning pose in healthcare. Additionally, they have tapped legal experts to review the legal statues, government regulations, and civil rights law in place for patients' rights, privacy, and confidentiality, and consents for the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union. The book closes with a chapter written by the editors that envisions the near future-the impact that the new digital technologies will have on how care is delivered, expanding care settings into community and home, virtual monitoring, and patient generated data, as well as the numerous ways that nurses' roles and technology skill sets must increase to support the global goals of equal access to healthcare. Nursing and Informatics for the 21st Century - Embracing a Digital World, 3rd Edition is comprised of four books which can be purchased individually: Book 1: Realizing Digital Health - Bold Challenges and Opportunities for Nursing Book 2: Nursing Education and Digital Health Strategies Book 3: Innovation, Technology, and Applied Informatics for Nurses Book 4: Nursing in an Integrated Digital World that Supports People, Systems, and the Planet

First Edition Named a 2013 Doody's Core Title! First Edition Second Place AJN Book-of-the-Year Award Winner in Maternal and Child Health! With more women than ever seeking obstetric triage and emergency services in obstetric triage units, obstetric providers need to be aware of triage assessment and evaluation protocols. This prize-winning pocket guide, containing management guidelines for obstetric triage/emergency settings, delivers critical information on obstetrics, midwifery, emergency, and family care for both students and seasoned clinicians. As with the first edition, all of the newly revised chapters take a strong collaborative and interprofessional approach to clinical conditions in the obstetric triage setting. With specific clinical protocols for more than 30 clinical situations, this fully updated second edition includes two completely new chapters on sepsis in pregnancy and triage acuity tools, along with updated guidelines for hypertension, sepsis, and postpartum complications. Each protocol comprises presenting symptomatology, patient history and data collection, physical exam findings, laboratory and imaging studies, differential diagnosis, and clinical management protocol/follow up. Plentiful figures and images, reference tables and standardized forms for reference and usage, algorithms, and clinical pathways illustrate chapter content. Esteemed contributors include midwives, nurse practitioners, obstetricians, gynecologists, and maternal fetal medicine faculty who evaluate nearly 30,000 OB visits per year. New to the Second Edition: New chapters on sepsis in pregnancy and triage acuity tools Key updates on ectopic pregnancy, nausea and hyperemesis in pregnancy, severe preeclampsia, sexually transmitted and other infections, substance abuse, and psychiatric disorders in pregnancy Expanded information on periviable obstetric management Information on Zika and Ebola Clinical callouts in each chapter highlighting key points Enhanced narrative protocols Key Features: Provides interprofessional triage protocol guidance for ED and OB triage settings Delivers protocols and guidelines for over 30 emergent care situations Includes plentiful diagnostic and imaging guidelines with accompanying figures Formatted consistently for quick access Offers algorithms, protocols, diagnostic imaging, and best evidence for each condition

In Engaging in Narrative Inquiry, Second Edition, D. Jean Clandinin, a pioneer in narrative research, updates her classic formulation on narrative inquiry, clarifying, extending, and refining methods. This updated edition looks at changes and developments in the field since the publication of the first edition in 2013, exploring how narrative inquiry explores human lives through a narrative lens that honors experience as a source of important knowledge and understanding. The book includes several exemplary cases with the author's critique and analysis of the work. The following are new to this edition: New exemplary cases, including Menon's autobiographical narrative inquiry as the starting point for framing a research puzzle and justifying a study, Chung's account of a study that begins with living alongside participants, and a paper from Swanson's autobiographical narrative inquiry An expanded discussion of the philosophical grounding of narrative inquiry An expanded discussion of relational ethics in narrative inquiry that highlights links to a relational ontology An updated account of the field of narrative inquiry that highlights future directions, including the necessity of response groups, and questions of responsibility and community The increasing interest in narrative inquiry as research methodology across disciplines makes this book an essential guide and an excellent text for graduate courses in qualitative inquiry, education and nursing research, sociology, and all courses in autobiographical and narrative research and inquiry.

The Routledge Handbook of Health and Media provides an extensive review and exploration of the myriad ways that health and media function as a symbiotic partnership that profoundly influences contemporary societies. A unique and significant volume in an expanding pedagogical field, this diverse collection of international, original, and interdisciplinary essays goes beyond issues of representation to engage in scholarly conversations about the web of networks that inextricably bind media and health to each other. Divided into sections on film, television, animation, photography, comics, advertising, social media, and print journalism, each chapter begins with a concrete text or texts, using it to raise more general and more theoretical issues about the medium in question. As such, this Handbook defines, expands, and illuminates the role that the humanities and arts play in the education and practice of healthcare professionals and in our understanding of health, illness, and disability. The Routledge Handbook of Health and Media is an invaluable reference for academics, students and health professionals engaged with cultural issues in media and medicine, popular representations of disease and disability, and the patient/professional health care encounter.

This book explores how, why and when hermeneutic phenomenology can be used as a methodology in health and social research. Providing actual examples of doing robust hermeneutic phenomenology and a focus on praxis, the book demonstrates how philosophical or theoretical notions can inform, enrich and enhance our research projects. The chapters offer examples of many different research designs and interpretive decisions in order to illustrate the unbounded and creative nature of this type of inquiry, whilst also demonstrating the trustworthiness of the scientific processes adopted. The chapter authors invite the reader on a unique journey that highlights how they made individual and tailored decisions throughout their projects, emphasising the challenges and joys they encountered. This book is a valuable resource for all students and academics who wish to explore the meaningfulness of human lived experiences across the multitude of phenomena in health and social care.

Infancy: The Basics offers an introduction to the developmental science behind the fascinating world of infant development. This book takes the reader from before birth through the moment infants come into the world seemingly unable to do much but eat, eliminate, and sleep, and across the few short, incredible years, to when infants are walking, talking, thinking humans with clear preferences, wishes, and dreams, having already forged strong long-lasting relationships. Dispelling common myths and misconceptions about how infants' perception, cognition, language, and personalities develop, this accessible evidence-based book takes a novel whole-child approach and provides insight into the joint roles of nature (biology) and nurture (experiences) in infant development, how to care for babies to give them the best start in life, and what it means for infants to become thinking communicating social partners. Topics in this book are covered with an eye firmly fixed on how infants' first years set the stage for the rest of their lives. By helping us understand infants, experts Marc H. Bornstein and Martha E. Arterberry give us the opportunity to learn about the resiliency of our species and the many different contexts in which families rear infants. They cover key topics, including how babies are studied scientifically, prenatal development and the newborn period, how infants explore and understand the world around them, how infants begin to communicate, how infants develop an emotional life, personality, and temperament, how infants build relationships, and how parents succeed in bringing up babies in challenging circumstances. This concise clear guide to the years from before birth to 3 is for students of developmental psychology, pediatric medicine and nursing, education, and social work. It also for all parents and professionals caring for infants, who want to understand the secret world of infancy.

Sets out a clear argument for care and caregiving as an aesthetic experience and aesthetic act. Written for all advanced students of nursing and applied theatre, as well as professionals in care, nursing and dramatherapy. The first and only book to advance this concept, disturbing the boundaries of artistic and care practice.

Originally published in 1974, and written by paediatricians, social workers, nurses and a parent who cared for her dying child, this book is concerned with pinpointing the problems which exist for parents and those involved in the care of sick children, both in terms of accepting the facts of a child's illness, and in loving supporting and giving them maximum enjoyment within the limits of their condition. The fears and anxieties of such children are examined - separation from parents, fear of pain, an increasing sense of difference and in some cases a very real appreciation of their situation. All these limit the child's happiness, and ways of counteracting them are suggested. Similarly the distress of parents and of medical advisers is discussed.

This text provides a comprehensive and evidence-based introduction to psychiatric mental health assessment and diagnosis in advanced nursing practice. Taking a clinical, case-based approach, this textbook is designed to support graduate nursing students who are studying psychiatric mental health nursing as they develop their reasoning and decision-making skills. It presents: Therapeutic communication and psychiatric interviewing techniques, alongside basic psychiatric terminologies. The major psychiatric diagnoses, drawing on the DSM-5. A step-by-step guide to conducting a comprehensive psychiatric mental health assessment. Case examples demonstrating assessment across major psychopathologies. Good practice for conducting mental health evaluations. This is an essential text for all those undertaking psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner programs and a valuable reference for advanced practice nurses in clinical practice.

Infancy: The Basics offers an introduction to the developmental science behind the fascinating world of infant development. This book takes the reader from before birth through the moment infants come into the world seemingly unable to do much but eat, eliminate, and sleep, and across the few short, incredible years, to when infants are walking, talking, thinking humans with clear preferences, wishes, and dreams, having already forged strong long-lasting relationships. Dispelling common myths and misconceptions about how infants' perception, cognition, language, and personalities develop, this accessible evidence-based book takes a novel whole-child approach and provides insight into the joint roles of nature (biology) and nurture (experiences) in infant development, how to care for babies to give them the best start in life, and what it means for infants to become thinking communicating social partners. Topics in this book are covered with an eye firmly fixed on how infants' first years set the stage for the rest of their lives. By helping us understand infants, experts Marc H. Bornstein and Martha E. Arterberry give us the opportunity to learn about the resiliency of our species and the many different contexts in which families rear infants. They cover key topics, including how babies are studied scientifically, prenatal development and the newborn period, how infants explore and understand the world around them, how infants begin to communicate, how infants develop an emotional life, personality, and temperament, how infants build relationships, and how parents succeed in bringing up babies in challenging circumstances. This concise clear guide to the years from before birth to 3 is for students of developmental psychology, pediatric medicine and nursing, education, and social work. It also for all parents and professionals caring for infants, who want to understand the secret world of infancy.