Main description:

The book Perspectives on Midwifery and Parenthood explores contemporary issues relating to parenthood and midwifery. This book bridges a gap in the literature, where it highlights the close and unique relationships that midwives, nurses, doctors, other health care professionals and students enjoy with women and men during their transition to parenthood. Midwives work in close contact with and address the diverse needs of women and men during one of the most critical life's transitions, preconception, pregnancy, childbirth and early parenting and its long term implications on the psychosocial, emotional, physical and spiritual wellbeing of parents and infants.

The chapters cover the transition and preparation for parenthood, midwives and parental-fetal-tie in pregnancy, perinatal mental health, maternal well-being, infertility, repeated loss and surrogacy, supporting early parenting following preterm birth, adolescent pregnancy and early parenthood, social challenges and parenthood including drug and alcohol use in pregnancy, intimate partners' violence, migrants and transition to parenthood, fathers' transition to parenthood, diversity of family formation - LGBTQ+ parents, breastfeeding, the role of spirituality during pregnancy, and midwifery and parenthood. Each person is unique and so is the response to parenthood, as the mother, father and family embark on this new lifeworld, a lifelong commitment.

The book is a compendium of contemporary research depicting the strengths, opportunities, and recommendations how midwives and other health care professionals can nurture optimal, compassionate, respectful person- and family-centred care during pregnancy and early parenting, the transition to parenthood.

Contents:

1. Midwifery and the Transition to Parenthood 2. Preparation for Parenthood3. The Parental-Fetal Tie During Pregnancy4. Well-Being and Early Motherhood5. Midwifery and Perinatal Mental Health6. Infertility, Repeated Loss, and Surrogacy7. Supporting Early Parenting Following Preterm Birth8. Adolescent Pregnancy and Early Parenting9. Drug and Alcohol Use in Pregnancy and Early Parenthood10. Violence, Abuse and Coercive Control in Pregnancy and Early Parenting 11. Migrants, Midwives, and the Transition to Parenthood12. Midwives and the Transition to Fatherhood13. Diversity of Family Formation: LGBTQ+ Parents14. Spirituality and Spiritual Care in the Transition to Motherhood15. Breastfeeding: Women's Experiences in the Transition to Motherhood 16. Perspectives on Midwifery and Parenthood