Doody's Review Service

Reviewer:	Maradith Skalak, MD (Tulane University School of Medicine)

Description
This is a comprehensive book reviewing fetal and neonatal conditions that require surgical or medical interventions in the prenatal or immediate postnatal period. This is a unique book combining obstetric, maternal-fetal medicine, perinatal, neonatal, surgical and medical concepts to provide a cutting-edge reference text for obstetric and neonatal care providers.

Purpose
There has been a rapid expansion in the ability to diagnose and treat fetuses and newborns affected by a number of congenital anomalies over the past two decades. This book addresses a knowledge gap for obstetric and neonatal care providers who may not encounter these complex patients in their regular clinical practice. To provide excellent clinical care and adequate prenatal counseling to parents, fetuses, and newborns affected by congenital anomalies, clinicians must have access to up-to-date recommendations regarding outcomes and interventions. This book provides a comprehensive overview that enables clinicians to have more complete knowledge about pathophysiology, presentation, and treatments for a wide number of conditions.

Audience
This book provides comprehensive knowledge for obstetric and neonatal care providers who may be counseling expectant patients or providing newborn care to neonates affected by congenital anomalies. The material may be most helpful to neonatologists who provide prenatal counseling to patients who will be delivering infants with medical and surgical problems that require fetal or neonatal interventions. Obstetricians, maternal-fetal medicine providers, pediatricians, students, and trainees will benefit from the information provided in this book as well. This book provides a detailed and thorough review of a number of fetal and neonatal conditions and is applicable both to clinicians both in tertiary and quaternary care centers as well as those practicing in community settings. This book condenses knowledge from experts in obstetrics, perinatology, fetal and pediatric surgery, neonatology, and radiology to provide a comprehensive reference text which addresses a practice and knowledge gap for many providers. The authors are well-known experts and pioneers in their respective fields.

Features
This first section of the book reviews principles of diagnostic testing in the obstetric setting, from genetic testing to ultrasound and fetal MRI. The second section introduces medical and surgical interventions that can be offered prenatally to fetuses for certain conditions, including ultrasound-guided procedures, fetoscopic, and open fetal surgeries. The third section includes special considerations regarding transition physiology and, importantly, a discussion on perinatal palliative care. Then the fourth section reviews fetal and neonatal conditions in greater detail, organized by organ system. Finally, some topics for future directions in perinatal-neonatal care are discussed, including gene therapies and the artificial placenta. The book is organized intuitively, moving from considerations of the pregnant patient to the fetus and then ultimately the newborn. The consideration of diseases within each organ system allows for the ability to quickly identify relevant information. The use of images, tables, and clinical cases helps engagement and highlights key points. Most importantly, this book is fairly unique in its content, melding experts in a number of fields to provide the latest information to providers caring for parents, fetuses, and newborns impacted by congenital malformations.The book is organized intuitively, moving from considerations of the pregnant woman, to the fetus and then ultimately the newborn. The consideration of diseases within each organ system allows for the ability to quickly identify relevant information. The use of images, tables and clinical cases helps engage the reader and highlight key points. Most importantly, this book is fairly unique in its content, melding experts in a number of fields to provide the latest information to providers caring for mothers, fetuses and newborns impacted by congenital malformations.

Assessment
This is a new essential book for future and current neonatologists, regardless of the clinical practice setting. Caring for fetuses and newborns with congenital malformations requires knowledge from multiple medical and surgical subspecialties. This book provides the relevant and required information from each of these subspecialties and condenses it into one reference text. The book also includes the most updated medical and surgical interventions and recommendations to ensure clinicians have the information needed to provide adequate prenatal counseling. This occupies a unique niche that no other textbook has up to this point. Although this is a first edition text, subsequent editions will likely be required to accommodate new investigations and innovations in the future.