Midwifery: The Basics provides an engaging and authentic insight into the midwife’s world.It explores the role of the midwife as a clinician and professional, showing how midwives can support women both to achieve a healthy full-term pregnancy and a smooth transition to motherhood.This book begins with a discussion of the context of birth and parenthood, placing midwifery in its broader social context.Topics covered include: the midwife as an autonomous professional; becoming a midwife; pre-conceptual and antenatal care; intrapartum care; postnatal care; and the specialist midwife. Midwifery: The Basics uses the voices of mothers, fathers and midwives to illustrate the complex world of becoming, being and supporting parents.This is an essential introduction for students at undergraduate and A-Level who are approaching midwifery for the first time.