News that survival of babies born before 24 weeks has not improved over the past decade has swamped the UK press today (eg. BBC), despite this being largely a confirmation of a study published last month (EPICure).

This emotive topic gathers extra interest and importance because of legislation governing when an abortion is legal (currently up to 24 weeks, and about to be debated; TimesOnline; Guardian). It seems we may have reached some limit – at least for now – in our ability to help premature babies to survive. The good news is that the proportion of babies who survive at 24 and 25 weeks has improved.

The work was done by David Field and colleagues from the University of Leicester, and was published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ). The study looked at data from 1,000 births in the Trent region of England from 1994-1999 and 2000-2005. For 25-week-old babies survival went up to 63% from 52%; for 24-week-old babies, it rose to 41% from 24%; for 23-week-old babies it stayed steady at just under 20%.