To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department are taking to support research into the causes of baby loss.
Answered on
17 May 2023
The Department commissions research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and is the largest public funder of health research in the United Kingdom.
The NIHR funds a range of research in maternal and neonatal health focussing on the safety of maternity and neonatal services, and the national maternity ambition to halve maternal deaths, stillbirths and neonatal deaths and brain injury by 2025.
Since 2011, NIHR Research Programmes have invested £21.5 million on 27 awards conducting research into miscarriage and stillbirth. Additionally, the NIHR Policy Research Programme funds a Policy Research Unit dedicated to Maternal & Neonatal Health & Care research which is based at the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit, University of Oxford, and led by Professor Jenny Kurinczuk.