Funding ‘needed to prevent premature births’

The government is not spending enough to prevent premature births, a charity has claimed.

Action Medical Research (AMR) says the government spent only ?3.7 million in 2004-2005 on research into premature births.

This amounts to 0.3 per cent of research spending, despite an AMR poll of 1,000 people showing that most people thought the government was spending 12 per cent of its research budget on preventing premature births, the charity says.

Premature birthing is the major cause of infant death in the UK. About 50,000 babies are born prematurely every year, with more than 1,500 babies dying as a result.

Andrew Proctor, communications director at AMR, said: “This lack of priority for premature babies is completely at odds with what most people would like to see.

“We assume that our babies’ health will be championed by those we elected to power but it seems they disagree about where they believe our money should be invested.”

The Department of Health spoke out against AMR’s figures saying that its research spending into premature births stood at about ?6 million. A spokesperson for the department said that more funding was available through research grants.

“Quality proposals for research into premature births can apply for a share of this funding for their projects,” said the spokesperson.

This is not the first time that AMR have criticised government spending in this area. Last month, during their release of research into the hormone oxytocin and its link to premature labour, the charity criticised government funding for hindering its progress.

“This is a crucial step forward and will provide the platform for further work to see how we can stop these effects with drugs,” Professor Steven Thornton said at the time.

“However work like ours has been severely hampered by lack of government funding and we are fortunate that AMR has chosen to prioritise this area with its ?3 million touching tiny lives campaign.”