IMPORTANT NOTICE: Updates to the ScotPHO website are currently paused while we undertake a review of the content, structure and hosting of the website. See our Website Notice for further details. Updates to the ScotPHO online profiles tool will continue as normal.

Pregnancy, births and maternity: policy context

Poverty

The Scottish Government has identified a number of priority family groups for tackling child poverty, including families with a child under the age of 1.Social security benefits available to pregnant women in Scotland include the:

Best Start Grant (which includes a Pregnancy and Baby Payment)
Best Start Food Payments (also including extra payments to low-income pregnant women),
Scottish Child Payment, which applicants can get for every child they look after who is under 16 years of age.

Maternity care and birth outcomes

The best start: a five-year forward plan for maternity and neonatal care in Scotland, published in 2017, set out a vision for the future planning, design and safe delivery of high-quality maternity and neonatal services in Scotland.

The PHS Maternal and Neonatal Hub was developed to ensure timely and accurate data on outcomes for mothers and children are recorded.

The Universal Health Visiting Pathway in Scotland (introduced 2015) sets out the minimum core home visiting programme to be offered to all families by Health Visitors.

Maternal and infant wellbeing

The national framework on Improving Maternal and Infant Nutrition (2011) sets out actions that can be taken by NHS Boards, local authorities and others to improve the nutrition of pregnant women, babies and young children.

All maternity units and community NHS services in Scotland received UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) accreditation in 2018.

All pregnant women in Scotland are entitled to free vitamins.

Each new child born in Scotland received a baby box of essential items for a child’s first weeks and months to support parents.