Guidance

This guideline covers the routine postnatal care women and their babies should receive for 6–8 weeks after the birth. It includes advice given on breastfeeding, and the management of common and serious health problems in women and their babies after the birth.

 The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has produced guidance on COVID-19 and postnatal care for all midwifery and obstetric services.

Recommendations

This guideline includes recommendations on:

Who is it for?

  • Healthcare professionals
  • Commissioners of primary and secondary care services
  • Women having routine postnatal care for 6–8 weeks after the birth of their baby, and their families and carers

Is this guideline up to date?

We checked this guideline in January 2017 and we are updating it. See the guideline in development page for progress on the update.

Guideline development process

How we develop NICE guidelines

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.