Guidance
This guideline covers the routine antenatal care that women and their babies should receive. It aims to ensure that pregnant women are offered regular check‑ups, information and support. We have also published a guideline on postnatal care, which covers the topics of emotional attachment and baby feeding.
For information on related topics, see our women's and reproductive health summary page.
The guideline uses the terms 'woman' or 'mother' throughout. These should be taken to include people who do not identify as women but who are pregnant. Similarly, where the term 'parents' is used, this should be taken to include anyone who has main responsibility for caring for a baby.
Recommendations
This guideline includes recommendations on:
- organisation and delivery of antenatal care
- routine antenatal clinical care
- information and support for pregnant women and their partners
- interventions for common problems during pregnancy
Who is it for?
- Healthcare professionals
- Commissioners of antenatal care services
- Women using antenatal services, their partners, their families, and the public
Guideline development process
How we develop NICE guidelines
This guideline was commissioned by NICE and developed in partnership with the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG).
This guideline updates and replaces NICE guideline CG62 (published March 2008) and evidence summary ES20.
Your responsibility
The recommendations in this guideline represent the view of NICE, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. When exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account, alongside the individual needs, preferences and values of their patients or the people using their service. It is not mandatory to apply the recommendations, and the guideline does not override the responsibility to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with them and their families and carers or guardian.
All problems (adverse events) related to a medicine or medical device used for treatment or in a procedure should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency using the Yellow Card Scheme.
Local commissioners and providers of healthcare have a responsibility to enable the guideline to be applied when individual professionals and people using services wish to use it. They should do so in the context of local and national priorities for funding and developing services, and in light of their duties to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to advance equality of opportunity and to reduce health inequalities. Nothing in this guideline should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with complying with those duties.
Commissioners and providers have a responsibility to promote an environmentally sustainable health and care system and should assess and reduce the environmental impact of implementing NICE recommendations wherever possible.