Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of introducing voluntary formal registration for stillbirths that occur before 24 weeks gestation.

In February 2018, the Department announced a new Pregnancy Loss Review to consider questions on registering/certifying pregnancy loss that occurs before 24 weeks gestation and the quality of National Health Service care for women experiencing such losses.

The Pregnancy Loss Review has successfully engaged with a range of stakeholders, including baby loss charities, parents with lived experience of pregnancy loss, registrars and clinicians.

Work on the Pregnancy Loss Review was paused in 2020 owning to the response to the COVID-19 emergency. Work has now resumed, progress has been made and we aim to publish the Review findings in due course.