NCT has produced evidence-based information on Antenatal care and Antenatal courses and on a range of pregnancy related topics, including pre-eclampsia, yoga in pregnancy and complementary therapies.

NICE guidance

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has produced clinical guidance on Antenatal care: routine care for the healthy pregnant woman. Pregnant women with complex social factors may need additional support to use antenatal care services. The guideline Pregnancy and complex social factors: a model for service provision for pregnant women with complex social factors, published September 2010, describes how access to care can be improved, how contact with antenatal carers can be maintained, the additional support and consultations that are required and the additional information that should be offered to pregnant women with complex social factors.

Published in August 2010 the NICE guidance on Hypertension in pregnancy provides evidence-based advice on the care and treatment of women who have or are at risk of developing hypertension (high blood pressure) in pregnancy. It contains advice on the diagnosis and management of hypertension during pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period. It also includes advice for women with chronic hypertension who wish to conceive and for women who have had a pregnancy complicated by hypertension.

NICE also published the Diabetes in pregnancy guideline in March 2008. The Diabetes in pregnancy guideline offers valuable guidance to health professionals on how to help women manage their diabetes from before conception through to the period after they give birth. 

The NICE guidance for Dietary interventions and physical activity interventions for weight management before, during and after pregnancy was published in July 2010. It offers guidance to managers and health professionals working in antenatal, postnatal services and children’s centres who have a direct or indirect role in, and responsibility for, women who are pregnant or who are planning a pregnancy and mothers who have had a baby in the last 2 years.

Government publications

The Scottish Government wants to ensure that all children have the best possible start to life, are ready to succeed and live longer, healthier lives. The Maternal and Infant Nutrition Framework for Action has been developed to help achieve this and is aimed at a wide variety of organisations with a role in improving maternal and infant nutrition in Scotland.

The NHS Quality Improvement Scotland (QIS) published Version 6 of the Scottish Woman Held Maternity Record in November 2011 and is now being used across Scotland. Scotland is the first of the UK countries to have a single national unified handheld record for women during their maternity care.