Maternity Care and Support

Your rights

• Everyone in the UK can access NHS maternity care.
• No matter their citizenship or immigration status.

Costs

• Not everyone gets free maternity care.
• It depends on if you are ‘ordinarily resident’. 
  • This means living in the UK legally, by choice, and for settled purposes.
• Foreign nationals can also be considered ‘ordinarily resident’.
• If you are charged and don't know why or want to challenge it, you can:
  • Contact Maternity Action.
  • They also help pregnant people and new parents with issues like:
    • Employment and healthcare.

First steps:

• The NHS advises seeing a midwife or GP as soon as possible.
• This is so you can get maternity (antenatal) care.
• Try to see a midwife before you are 10 weeks pregnant.

Maternity care includes:

• 10 pregnancy appointments to check your baby's health.
• Screening tests to check for certain conditions.
• Blood tests for syphilis, HIV, and hepatitis B.

Resources

• Visit the NHS website for details on what maternity care involves.
• See our report on maternity engagement and outreach work with Gypsies and Travellers here.
• You might be eligible for child benefits. For more information, see here.