Pregnancy and Complex Social Factors
| Date published: | September 2010 |
| State: | Published |
The NICE guideline ‘Antenatal care: routine care for the healthy pregnant woman’ (NICE clinical guideline 62) (available here: http://guidance.nice.org.uk/CG62 ) outlines the care that women should be offered during pregnancy. However, pregnant women with complex social factors may have additional needs. This guideline sets out what healthcare professionals as individuals, and antenatal services as a whole, can do to address these needs and improve pregnancy outcomes in this group of women.
The guideline applies to all women with complex social factors and contains a number of recommendations on standards of care for this population as a whole. However, four groups of women were identified as exemplars:
- Women who misuse substances (alcohol and/or drugs)
- Women who are recent migrants, asylum seekers or refugees, or who have difficulty reading or speaking English
- Young women aged under 20
- Women who experience domestic abuse
The guideline 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.
Specific issues considered include:
- Consideration of the most appropriate healthcare setting for maternity care provision
- Practice models for overcoming barriers and facilitating access, including access to appropriate interpreting services and all necessary care
- Ways of communicating information to women so that they can make appropriate choices
- Optimisation of resources
For general enquiries about this guideline please e-mail enquiries@ncc-wch.org.uk