Birth Emergencies: For Community Midwives - Paperback
Birth Emergencies: For Community Midwives - Paperback
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by Nell Tharpe Cnm (Foreword by), Joseph Livingston (Foreword by), Bonnie Gruenberg (Illustrator)
2025 BIBA Award Winner
Birth Emergencies for Community Midwives is an award-winning, comprehensive reference that equips midwives with the knowledge and clinical judgment required to recognize, assess, and manage complications across the continuum of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum care.
Spanning antepartum, intrapartum, and postpartum emergencies, this text bridges community-based care with definitive hospital management. Written primarily for midwives attending home and birth center deliveries, it integrates current research, clinical best practices, and holistic midwifery principles to reduce maternal, fetal, and neonatal morbidity in any setting.
Each chapter opens with clearly stated objectives and a realistic case study and concludes with thoughtful discussion questions designed to strengthen clinical reasoning and real-world decision-making.
Topics include:- Maternal physiologic adaptations to pregnancy
- Advanced critical thinking and risk assessment
- Recognition and management of obstetric emergencies
- Antepartum bleeding
- Acute abdominal pain
- Respiratory compromise
- Trauma and shock
- Altered level of consciousness
- Cardiac arrest in pregnancy
- Hypertensive disorders
- Preterm birth and PPROM
- Malpresentation and multiple gestation
- Cord prolapse
- Shoulder dystocia
- Fetal and neonatal assessment
- Neonatal resuscitation
- Low-birthweight and vulnerable infants
- Postpartum hemorrhage
- Differential diagnosis in urgent situations
- Client communication in crisis
- Interprofessional collaboration
- Transfer of care
- Stress, compassion fatigue, and burnout
- Building and sustaining a safer practice
Enhanced by 320 figures, 81 tables, and 24 clinical mnemonics-many unique to this text-along with highlighted key concepts and clinical pearls, Birth Emergencies for Community Midwives is one of the most detailed and practical textbooks available for out-of-hospital birth providers.
Whether used as a training manual, reference text, or clinical refresher, this resource strengthens preparedness, supports sound judgment under pressure, and promotes safer outcomes for families.
About the Author
Bonnie Urquhart Gruenberg, MSN, CNM, CRNP, FACNM, is an award-winning author and practicing certified nurse-midwife with more than 23 years of clinical experience. She has attended thousands of births in home, birth center, and hospital settings.
She is the author of Birth Emergency Skills Training and co-developer of the internationally taught workshop of the same name. In addition to her midwifery texts, she has authored and illustrated 13 books across diverse subjects.
Bonnie currently practices with WellSpan Health in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
"Bonnie's excellent book is a valuable resource for community midwives managing out-of-hospital birth emergencies... Buy it, read it, reread it, and save lives." - Joe Livingston, MD, MPH