Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether it is his Department's policy that babies in the third trimester that have been removed from their mother after her death should not be (a) recognised and (b) recorded as stillborn.

The definition of a stillborn child in England and Wales is contained in the Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953 section 41, and was amended by the Stillbirth (Definition) Act 1992 section 1(1). This act defines a stillbirth as ‘a child which has issued forth from its mother after the 24th week of pregnancy and which did not at any time breathe or show any other signs of life’.

It is expected that babies are recognised and recorded as stillborn in accordance with this definition.