Guidance

Supporting public health: maternity and babies

Documents to help local authorities and providers commission and deliver maternity and neonatal services.

• From: Public Health England
• Published: 1 July 2014
• Last updated: 31 July 2026
  Show all updates

  1. 31 July 2026

     Removed 'Care continuity between midwifery and health visiting services: principles for practice' - see the call-out box on the page for the link to the updated guidance.

  2. 12 February 2026

     Removed 'Health visiting and school nursing service delivery model', 'Population health needs assessment: a guide for 0 to 19 health visiting and school nursing services' and all early years and school-aged years high impact areas, and updated title. See the call-out box on the page for links to the updated guidance.

  3. 19 May 2021

     Added Care continuity between midwifery and health visiting guidance.

  4. 17 March 2021

     Added 6 new early years and 6 new school-aged years HIA guides, the Health visiting and school nursing service delivery model and Population health needs assessment documents.

  5. 9 December 2020

     Added 6 new PDFs about maternity high impact areas.

  6. 8 December 2020

     Updated to include the 6 maternity high impact area guides.

  7. 12 November 2018

     Updated set of (13) documents to reflect new policy drivers and evidence.

  8. 1 November 2016

     Updated high impact area guidance for early years, added documents for school aged years high impact areas and links to supporting infographics.

  9. 1 July 2014

     First published.

Applies to England

Documents

Maternity high impact area 1: Improving planning and preparation for pregnancy

PDF, 595 KB, 28 pages

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Maternity high impact area 2: Supporting good parental mental health

PDF, 491 KB, 28 pages

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Maternity high impact area 3: Supporting healthy weight before and between pregnancies

PDF, 498 KB, 30 pages

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Maternity high impact area 4: Reducing the incidence of harms caused by alcohol in pregnancy

PDF, 661 KB, 31 pages

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Maternity high impact area 5: Supporting parents to have a smokefree pregnancy

PDF, 566 KB, 32 pages

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Maternity high impact area 6: Reducing the inequality of outcomes for women from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities and their babies

PDF, 671 KB, 37 pages

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Details

For guidance related to health visiting and school nursing services, including the ages 0 to 5 and 5 to 19 high-impact areas, see:

• Healthy child programme: high-impact area framework
• Delivery of the healthy child programme
• Healthy child programme: commissioning public health nursing services

For guidance related to midwifery and health visiting, see Care continuity between midwifery and health visiting services.

The remaining guidance documents on this page are being reviewed and will be updated in due course. In the meantime, the current guidance should be followed.

This guidance identifies 6 areas where local maternity and neonatal systems have the highest impact on the health and wellbeing of women and their babies from preconception to 6 to 8 weeks postpartum.

Download the pathway and infographic for understanding female genital mutilation (FGM) to help midwives, health visitors, school nurses and practice nurses support women and girls at risk of or following FGM.