Pre-Pregnancy Care and Prenatal Care Resources

• American College of Nurse-Midwives 
  The American College of Nurse-Midwives is the professional association that represents certified nurse-midwives and certified midwives in the United States. Learn more about midwives .
• American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) 
  ACOG provides FAQs on routine tests in pregnancy  (PDF 72.4 KB), pre-pregnancy carrier screening  (PDF 313 KB), nutrition during pregnancy  (PDF 72.1 KB), and exercise during pregnancy  (PDF 83.3 KB). ACOG's website includes a searchable physician directory by state or name. Find a provider .
• Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) 
  AWHONN is a professional membership organization that promotes the health of women and newborns.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
  CDC offers information on:
  • Pre-Pregnancy care
  • Diabetes and pregnancy
  • Folic acid
  • STDs and pregnancy
  • Zika virus and pregnancy
• Health & Nutrition Information for Pregnant & Breastfeeding Women 
  Provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this site features tips and resources for pregnant and breastfeeding women.
• Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB)
  Part of the Health Resources & Services Administration, MCHB maintains information online about maternal/women's health, including answers to frequently asked questions and additional resources. The bureau also offers the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline, which provides free and confidential access to trained counselors and resources 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in English, Spanish, and more than 60 other languages. They can offer support and information related to before, during, and after pregnancy.
• March of Dimes 
  The March of Dimes page Before or Between Pregnancies  provides tips and resources for women who want to become pregnant.
• National Child and Maternal Health Education Program (NCMHEP)
  NICHD created NCMHEP in 2008 to provide a forum for reviewing, translating, and disseminating new research in maternal and child health. Current NCMHEP initiatives include:
  • Is It Worth It?—the Initiative to Reduce Elective Deliveries Before 39 Weeks of Pregnancy
  • The Know Your Terms Initiative
  • The Moms' Mental Health Matters initiative to raise awareness about depression and anxiety during and after pregnancy
• Office on Women's Health (OWH)
  OWH also maintains information on prenatal care.
• National Library of Medicine (NLM)
  MedlinePlus, an NLM service, maintains resources on pre-pregnancy care and prenatal care.
• Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans
  Chapters 4 and 6 of the guidelines provides information on the benefits of exercise during pregnancy.
• Text4baby 
  Text4baby provides the opportunity to sign up to receive helpful text messages regarding your pregnancy.

Please note: Links to organizations and information included on this page do not indicate endorsement from NICHD, NIH, or HHS.

• At these links, you can find information about NICHD-sponsored research networks, studies, and projects related to pre-pregnancy care and prenatal care:
  • The Maternal-Fetal Surgery Network was created in 2001 to investigate surgical treatment for nonlethal conditions, such as spina bifida. The NICHD Pregnancy and Perinatology Branch supports the network.
  • The Reproductive Medicine Network, part of the NICHD Fertility and Infertility (FI) Branch, leads several current clinical trials to determine if medications for women with polycystic ovary syndrome can help them conceive and deliver a healthy infant.
  • The Maternal and Pediatric Precision in Therapeutics (MPRINT) Hub, part of the Obstetric & Pediatric Pharmacology Branch, provides the expert infrastructure needed to test therapeutic drugs during pregnancy. It allows researchers to conduct safe, technically sophisticated, and complex studies that will help clinicians protect women's health, improve birth outcomes, and reduce infant mortality. The mission of the OPRU is to promote and facilitate cooperative multidisciplinary research to enhance the understanding of obstetric pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.
  • The Congenital Anomalies Research Group is a multicenter, multidisciplinary group led by NICHD to investigate the etiology of congenital anomalies, particularly neural tube defects. It is supported by NICHD's Division of Population Health Research. The collaborating institutions are NICHD, the National Human Genome Research Institute, the Health Research Board of Ireland, and the Department of Biochemistry, Trinity College, Dublin.
  • This NICHD video presents information on the challenges of Zika virus, particularly its potential effects on pregnancy and the developing fetus. It also introduces the Zika in Infants and Pregnancy (ZIP) study, launched in June 2016.
• American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)  
  ACOG provides four publications that address prenatal care:
  • Smoking Cessation during Pregnancy: Clinician's Guide (PDF – 4.53 MB) provides suggestions, sample dialogues, and resources for health care providers to help their patients quit smoking.
  • Good Health Before Pregnancy: Prepregnancy Care  reinforces the importance of pre-pregnancy care and the need for a plan for your reproductive life.
  • The Committee Opinion on Weight Gain During Pregnancy  addresses recent Institute of Medicine recommendations about appropriate weight gain during pregnancy.
  • The Committee Opinion on Physical Activity and Exercise During Pregnancy and the Postpartum Period addresses modifications to exercise routines in pregnancy.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Show Your Love campaign 
  CDC recently launched a pre-pregnancy health campaign called "Show Your Love" to increase the number of women who plan their pregnancies and engage in healthy behaviors before becoming pregnant.
• A Report of the CDC/ATSDR Preconception Care Work Group and the Select Panel on Preconception Care (2006) 
  This report provides recommendations to improve both pre-pregnancy health and care. The goal of these recommendations is to improve the health of women and couples before they conceive a first or subsequent pregnancy.
• Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN)  
  AWHONN is a professional membership organization that promotes the health of women and newborns. Read AWHONN position statements on a wide variety of topics related to women's and infants' health .

Please note: Links to organizations and information included on this page do not indicate endorsement from NICHD, NIH, or HHS.