OBJECTIVE: This article is part of a project for mapping the literature of nursing. The purpose is to identify the core journals in nurse-midwifery and to determine the extent to which these titles are covered by standard indexing sources. METHODS: Cited references from two source journals were analyzed to discover the most frequently cited publications, including their format, age, and amount of dispersion, as well as the indexes that offer the most complete coverage. RESULTS: A study of the literature of nurse-midwifery reveals that the field is diverse, including such topics as women's health, obstetrics, gynecology, and parent-child relations, in addition to the practice of nurse-midwifery itself. Journals were the most heavily cited format, and analysis revealed that ten journals provided one-third of all the references in the study. CONCLUSIONS: A combination of Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index or PubMed/MEDLINE provided the best overall coverage because of the field's reliance on medical journals. CINAHL had the most complete coverage for the nurse-midwifery journals as well as nursing journals in general.