As of 1 January 2016, the UN sustainable development goals (SDGs) became the focus of global efforts on a wide range of development agenda. The SDGs have subsumed the work of the UN millennium development goals (MDGs), so it is timely to reflect on the contribution made by nurses and midwives, so that we can optimise the profession’s contribution to the 17 SDGs. This article reports the results of a scientometrics analysis of the published literature related to the MDGs and SDGs indexed in CINAHL, which identified the underlying themes addressed by nurses and midwives. It shows how analysis demonstrates that although nursing was slow to engage with the MDG agenda, it has made some progress in contributing to SDG scholarship. So far this contribution has been narrowly focused, but the profession could contribute to all 17 of the SDG goals. Routine updates of the analysis described here could help monitor progress, identify gaps in nursing’s contributions to the goals, and provide further impetus to its engagement in this major global policy initiative.