# WHO recommendations on antenatal care for a positive pregnancy experience (2016)

Guideline · id `maternal:guideline-who-2016-anc` · Maternal & Newborn Atlas · release `c7fb95f1d15a7d13` (public)

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Browse, life stage: Pregnancy  
Browse, care area: Routine pregnancy care  

## In plain language

The World Health Organization’s 2016 global guideline on routine antenatal care. It covers nutrition, checks on the mother and the baby, preventive measures, common symptoms of pregnancy, and how antenatal care is organised. Its best-known recommendation is a model of at least eight contacts with a health care provider during pregnancy.

## Technical summary

WHO guideline, 2016, ISBN 978-92-4-154991-2. The who.int page shows 28 November 2016; the WHO IRIS record gives an issue date of 2016-11-07. The who.int page states the licence CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO while the PDF copyright page says All rights reserved; the two are not reconciled. WHO states that the guideline is meant for every pregnant woman or girl who receives routine antenatal care, wherever it is delivered. Its recommendation E.7 is recorded as a claim on the antenatal care page. The who.int page lists later WHO updates of individual topics (2020 to 2022, for example on ultrasound scans in the first half of pregnancy); whether any changes a recommendation recorded here was not checked.

## Connected pages

- Issued by: World Health Organization (`maternal:who`)

## Provenance

Content hash: 7aa4fe2d4bc1cd4660e05f1b58ed8161538d90e08256e6905aabdf8c7b2268fc
Last substantive edit: 2026-10-14
Evidence last checked: 2026-10-14