How does the subspecialty of maternal-fetal medicine relate to its parent discipline of obstetrics? Creasy and Resnik have given their answer to this question in the form of a book intended to "merge the basic and clinical sciences of normal pregnancy as well as reproductive malfunction." Their aim has been accomplished quite admirably, with the aid of 48 contributors whose names read like a veritable who's who of obstetrics, gynecology, endocrinology, and neonatology.
A certain amount of unevenness is inherent in any multiauthored text. The fact that it is a relatively minor problem in this volume reflects careful planning and editing by the editors, resulting in an organizational structure that flows logically from physiology to pathophysiology and chapters that are almost all comprehensive, detailed, and amply illustrated. Of course, there are some exceptions. The section on cardiac diseases is rather brief and omits any discussion of important subjects such as