Women’s health care encompasses reproductive health care

and the unique physical, psychologic, and social needs of

women throughout their life span. The specialties of women’s

health and maternity nursing offer challenges and opportunities.

Nurses are challenged to assimilate knowledge and develop

the technical and critical thinking skills needed to be reflective

practitioners. Each woman, with her individual needs that

must be identified and met, presents a challenge. However, the

opportunities are sufficiently extraordinary to make this one of

the most fulfilling specialties of nursing practice.

The goal of nursing education is to prepare today’s students

to meet the challenges of tomorrow. This preparation must

extend beyond mastery of facts and skills. Nurses must be able

to provide safe, quality, client-centered care through the combination

of clinical reasoning skills, technical competence, and

compassionate caring. They must address the physiologic as

well as the psychosocial needs of their clients. They must look

beyond the condition and see the woman as an individual with

distinctive needs. Yet they must consider her needs in the context

of family-centered care, realizing and acknowledging the

influence and involvement of family members and significant

others. Above all, nurses must strive to improve practice on

the basis of sound evidence-based information. In a time of

dwindling financial resources for health care, nurses can use

evidence-based practice to produce measurable outcomes that

can validate their unique and necessary role in the health care

delivery system.