Quality standard

This quality standard covers improving nutrition for pregnant women, and babies and children under 5 and their mothers and carers. It focuses on low‑income and disadvantaged families. It describes high-quality care in priority areas for improvement.

It does not give detailed advice on healthy diets or the nutrition and care of women and children who need specialist advice and care, such as women with diabetes or low birthweight babies.

It does not cover areas of national policy, such as population-based screening programmes or national maternal and child nutrition policies.

How to use NICE quality standards and how we develop them

Quality standards help you improve the quality of care you provide or commission. They apply in England and Wales (see the UK government website and Welsh government website). Decisions on how they apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland are made by ministers in the Scottish government and Northern Ireland Executive.

Find out how to use quality standards and how we develop them. We check our quality standards every August to make sure they are up to date.