Nursing Education Site
Maternal–Newborn Nursing Diagnoses & Care Plans
Maternity and newborn nursing focus on keeping both mother and baby safe from pregnancy through postpartum and the first weeks of life, which makes this a high‑yield area for NCLEX and clinical rotations.
This page gathers our maternal and newborn nursing diagnoses and care plans so you can quickly find assessment cues, priority interventions, and rationales for common pregnancy, labor, postpartum, and newborn conditions.
Start with the list of individual maternal and newborn care plans below (pregnancy, labor and delivery, postpartum, and newborn conditions).
Open each care plan to review: definition, causes, signs and symptoms, focused assessments, nursing interventions with rationales, and expected outcomes.
Use these examples as a study guide for NCLEX and as a quick reference when writing maternity or newborn care plans in clinical.
You can list everything in one column or split into two sections (Maternal vs Newborn)
Pregnancy – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Hyperemesis Gravidarum – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Gestational Diabetes – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Preeclampsia / Eclampsia – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Placenta Previa / Abruption – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Labor and Delivery – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Cesarean Birth – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Postpartum (Normal & High‑Risk) – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Postpartum Hemorrhage – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Postpartum Infection – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Postpartum Depression – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Newborn – Nursing Diagnosis & Nursing Care Plans
Late Preterm / Preterm Newborn – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Ineffective Thermoregulation in the Newborn – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Imbalanced Nutrition: Less Than Body Requirements (Newborn) – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Risk for Infection in the Newborn – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Hyperbilirubinemia / Jaundice – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Impaired Parent–Infant Attachment – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan
Discharge Teaching for the Newborn – Nursing Diagnosis & Care Plan (feeding, thermoregulation, safe sleep, car seat safety)
Oligohydramnios is too little amniotic fluid for the stage of pregnancy, usually defined on ultrasound as a deepest vertical pocket under 2 cm or an amniotic fluid index (AFI) of 5 cm or less. The most common causes are ruptured membranes, placental insufficiency, a pregnancy past its due date, and fetal kidney or urinary tract … See Nursing Diagnoses
Polyhydramnios is too much amniotic fluid around the fetus, diagnosed on ultrasound after 20 weeks when the amniotic fluid index (AFI) is 24 cm or more or the deepest vertical pocket is 8 cm or more. Most mild cases have no known cause, but diabetes, fetal anomalies that affect swallowing, multiple pregnancy, and fetal anemia … See Nursing Diagnoses
Ectopic pregnancy is a pregnancy that implants outside the uterine cavity, most often in a fallopian tube. It cannot grow to term, and if the tube ruptures it can cause severe internal bleeding and shock. It is a medical diagnosis, not a nursing diagnosis; the nursing diagnoses used most often are Risk for Shock, Acute … See Nursing Diagnoses
The neonatal period—the first 28 days of life—represents one of the most vulnerable yet remarkable phases of human development. During this critical window, newborns undergo rapid physiological transformation as they adapt from the protected intrauterine environment to independent extrauterine life. As nurses, we play an essential role in supporting this transition through comprehensive assessment, early … See Nursing Diagnoses
The postpartum period begins immediately after delivery and extends through the first six to eight weeks following childbirth. This critical transition phase—often called the “fourth trimester”—involves significant physiological recovery, hormonal shifts, emotional adjustment, and the steep learning curve of caring for a newborn. As nurses, we see firsthand how comprehensive postpartum assessment and targeted nursing … See Nursing Diagnoses