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Pregnancy and birth printables
Checklists and planners for pregnancy: appointments, your birth plan, the hospital bag, maternity leave and pay, and getting a nursery ready.
5 topics · 6 printable sheets
Printables in this section
2 sheetsHospital bag checklists
Two free printable UK hospital bag checklists, one for a vaginal birth and one for a caesarean. Three pages each, covering you, your baby, your birth partner and going home.
1 sheetBirth plan template
A free printable UK birth plan template. Six A4 pages, with a one page summary at the front for your maternity notes and fuller sections behind it, including what you would like if labour is induced or you need a caesarean.
1 sheetNursery checklist and room planner
A free printable nursery checklist covering everything for a safe, cosy and usable room, a safer sleep check based on Lullaby Trust guidance, and a full page grid for planning where the furniture actually goes.
1 sheetAntenatal appointment planner
A free printable planner for your antenatal appointments. One sheet per appointment for the questions you meant to ask, plus a page holding the whole schedule so you can see what's booked and what isn't.
1 sheetMaternity leave and pay checklist
A free printable checklist for UK maternity leave and pay. What to tell work and when, the deadlines that hang off your qualifying week, and a page for the dates and figures so you can check your payslips against something.
The organised bit before the unpredictable bit
There isn’t much about giving birth that you get to control, which is precisely why the parts you can control are worth doing properly and early. Packing a bag is one of them. So is writing down the triage number somewhere that isn’t a phone you might have left on charge in another room.
Do it around 35 or 36 weeks, while you can still reach your own feet and while “tomorrow” is still a reasonable assumption. I packed at 38 weeks and spent the whole evening cross with myself about leaving it.
Your maternity unit’s list comes first
Every unit is slightly different. Some supply nappies, some don’t. Some have strong views about eating in labour, some hand you toast. Anything printed here is a practical starting point, and if your unit’s own list disagrees with it, your unit wins every time.
One bag or two
Two, if you can. Birth things in the first, going home things in the second, left at home for your partner to bring when it’s needed. Hospital storage is limited and nobody wants to rummage through a fortnight of clothing to find a phone charger.
Roughly when to do what
Appointments start almost immediately, and the planner is worth printing from your booking appointment onwards. Sort maternity leave and pay by the fifteenth week before your due date, because that’s the deadline everything else hangs off. Write the birth plan somewhere around 32 to 34 weeks, pack the bag by 35 or 36, and treat the nursery as the thing that can wait, because it genuinely can.
The paperwork has queues, the shopping doesn’t
Uniform, bags and baby clothes can all be bought late, and usually are. The admin can’t, because most of it has a process and a waiting time attached: MATB1, maternity pay notice, hospital pre-registration, the parking permit nobody mentions.
Do the paperwork early and the shopping whenever.
Write things down before you need them
The last weeks of pregnancy aren’t a good time to be remembering phone numbers, and labour is a worse one. Triage number, maternity unit, your own address in a form a birth partner could read out, who is collecting other children.
None of it takes long, and all of it is impossible to produce under pressure.
Nothing here is a decision you can’t change
Plans change, birth changes them, and a preference written at 34 weeks is a preference rather than a commitment. Nothing on any of these sheets locks you into anything, and nothing can be done to you without your consent at the time. There is more on that in how to write a birth plan, including what to do when the plan and the day part company.