Baby study backs abortion law

Last Modified: 09 May 2008
Source: ITN

Survival rates for babies born before the current 24-week legal limit for abortion have not improved.

The findings, from research carried out at the University of Leicester, back up those of a large-scale Epicure study published last month.

That study found no improvement in survival rates for births before 24 weeks in the past decade.

However, both studies noted improved figures for babies born at 24 and 25 weeks gestation.

According to the Epicure figures, the proportion of babies who survive at 24 weeks has increased by 8 per cent to 47 per cent, and those at 25 weeks by 17 per cent to 67 per cent since 1995.

The results are likely to fuel arguement over whether the present abortion limit should be lowered - an issue which will be debated in the House of Commons on Monday.

Professor David Field and colleagues from the University of Leicester looked at survival rates over a 12-year period for 16 hospitals in the Trent region of the UK.

They examined the survival of all babies born before 26 weeks' gestation who were alive at the onset of labour, for the periods 1994 to 1999 and 2000 to 2005.

The authors said: "Of 497 infants admitted to neonatal intensive care in 2000-5, 236 (47 per cent) survived to discharge compared with 174/490 (36 per cent) in 1994.

"These changes were attributable to substantial improvements in the survival of infants born at 24 and 25 weeks.

"During the 12 years of the study, none of the 150 infants born at 22 weeks' gestation survived.

"Of the infants born at 23 weeks who were admitted to intensive care, there was no significant improvement in survival to discharge."

The reports authors found that in 2000-5, 18 per cent of babies born at 23 weeks survived to discharge compared with 19 per cent in 1994-9.

Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, Tory MP Jacqui Lait and Labour MP Chris McCafferty issued a joint statement saying: "This peer-reviewed published research from an entire population over many years completely blows out of the water the spurious claim of anti-abortionists that the threshold of foetal viability has reduced from 24 weeks since the early 1990s.

"There has been no significant improvement in the survival of babies born before 24 weeks' gestation over the past 12 years despite medical advances."

They said the findings reflected those of Epicure.

"The medical research literature is very clear that it is these whole population studies that provide the most reliable indication of survival rates," they said.

"In contrast, single hospital figures - usually unpublished - cited by anti-abortion groups are misleading because they preferentially select those cases which are likely to survive in the first case."

University College London Hospital figures, published earlier this year, showed that survival figures for babies born there between 22 and 25 weeks had increased from 32 per cent in 1981, to 71 per cent in 2000.

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