Government quietly drops target to reduce premature births by 15,000 per year

In 2017, a target was introduced to reduce the proportion of babies born prematurely by a quarter by 2025.

However, far from achieving this, experts now believe the rate is on the rise.

NHS show around 60,000 babies are born before 37 weeks of pregnancy in the UK every year - which is around 1 in 13 births overall.

"Sadly, around 1,000 babies every year die as a result of premature birth," says David Badcock, CEO of medical research charity Borne. “Many of those [who survive] will have lifelong disabilities."

“Premature birth is preventable. Until we understand much better the causes, we won’t be able to develop new treatments that are urgently needed.”

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Borne's analysis shows that the rate of premature births in the UK is above other high-income European countries, with thousands of parents suffering heartbreak as a result.

For the de Carvalho family, the memory of their “beautiful baby” Ophelia, who was born at 25 weeks weighing just 800g, motivates them to raise awareness of premature birth.

Stephanie’s waters broke at 21 weeks, while walking her two older children home from school. She “managed to hang on” before delivering Ophelia a month later at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

“The initial tests and checks were pretty positive for a child born that early and she was obviously put straight into the incubator,” Stephanie’s husband, Alexander, told LBC.

“We were expecting at that point a three to four month journey in the neonatal unit. Unfortunately, on the third day of her life, during a routine brain scan which all premature babies undergo, they discovered a significant brain bleed.”

Ophelia’s condition then worsened “day by day”.

She died when she was just 19 days old.

“I think it's quite hard to explain when your child passes away in your arms what you should feel because I don't think many of us are trained to experience or understand how to deal with something like that,” he said.

“We named her Ophelia because the name has a derivative in ‘teaching.’ And if we reflect now, three years later, we still see her as the greatest teacher that we've ever had… She's helped us understand that short life can be just as impactful as a long life.”

The most recent report by the House of Lords committee on preterm births stated it had received “unequivocal evidence” that the target to reduce the premature birth rate from 8% to 6% by 2025 “will not be met”.

Had the target been met, around 15,000 fewer premature births would occur each year.

It said: “the case to reduce the incidence of preterm birth is clear. As well as improving outcomes for babies and their families, economic modelling suggests this would lead to significant cost savings across healthcare and education,” concluding it would be “appropriate…that a target to reduce the preterm birth rate forms a key strand of the Government’s national maternity safety ambition.”

Despite that, the government has not set a specific new target to reduce the rate of premature births in the UK.

In response to LBC’s query about what the current target is, a Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “This government is determined to transform maternity and neonatal services to ensure all women and babies receive the highest quality care.

“That's why the Secretary of State will chair a new National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce to address deep-rooted issues.

“The previous government were not on track to meet a 6% premature birth rate in 2025 – but we have recruited over 1,000 more midwives since September 2024, introduced a system to better identify safety concerns and we are rolling out a programme to tackle discrimination and racism."

But for David Badcock, Borne's CEO, the issue is not being treated with enough urgency.

“Labour needs to do a lot more,” he said. "To reduce the rate of preterm birth, we need to see further sustained government and NHS action, with concrete commitments and clear timelines.”

The charity's mission is to end premature births altogether by researching identifying factors that may lead to preterm birth and improving treatments to delay labour.

LBC visited Borne’s laboratories at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital to see the research being carried out.

Scientists working on one of the projects, BUMP, are creating a map of the womb during labour to “revolutionise understanding of preterm birth, accelerate scientific breakthroughs, and stop babies being born too soon.”

“When we have a complete map of everything that's going on, that will give us a lot of information that will help us to understand how labour starts,” said Dr Viki Male, Associate Professor in Reproductive Immunology at Imperial College London. “And once we understand how labour starts, then we can start designing interventions that can hopefully help to stop it when we need it to.”

Across the corridor, PhD candidate and research assistant Emilie Patterson reflects on her work with consenting women who are in labour: “I collect samples and tissue samples from women that are about to give birth… from that tissue we can collect all sorts of information about the immune cells that are found in the tissue. And it gives us a really good insight into what's happening directly prior to labour.”

She said it’s “amazing” how many women are keen to participate in the research: “so many of them want to rally behind the cause of understanding why preterm birth is happening… [for] better solutions for women in the future.”