Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the guidance from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine, published in 2019, that neonatal stabilisation may be considered from 22 weeks gestation.

The Department has considered the ‘Framework on Perinatal Management of Extreme Preterm Birth before 27 Weeks of Gestation’ published by the British Association of Perinatal Medicine.

MBRRACE-UK published guidance in November 2020 to support health care professionals in the assessment and documentation of signs of life in extremely preterm births to support consistent decision making about birth classification.