Mothers in the UK who delivered stillborn babies after receiving any dose of a COVID-19 vaccine

Release date:
17 February 2022

FOI Ref: FOI/2022/3703

You asked

​Please supply the number of mothers in the UK who delivered stillborn babies after receiving any dose, 1st or 2nd, of the COVID-19 vaccine and/or booster dose, irrespective of pharmaceutical brand, between the period of December 2019 and December 2021. What is the number of mothers in the UK who delivered still born babies who are unvaccinated within the same time period?

This includes Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales respectively. Please detail this in the following order:

"This table includes the number of mothers who delivered stillborn babies between the period December 2019 and December 2021 who received any dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and/or booster shot or presented as unvaccinated".

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

We are responsible for the production of Mortality data for England and Wales, this is driven by information collected from the death certificate at death registration. National Records Scotland (NRS) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA) are responsible for statistics pertaining to Scotland and Northern Ireland. They can be contacted at foi@nrscotland.gov.uk and info@nisra.gov.uk respectively.

ONS publish Births and Stillbirth statistics in an annual cycle. Publicly available births and stillbirths 2020 (based on birth registrations) for England and Wales:

The annual births release covering stillbirths in 2021 is provisionally scheduled for release in the summer 2022. The ONS usual publication schedule of births statistics and the different sources used for births data are described in the User guide to birth statistics.

In 2020, provisional births data was published for the first time in response to delays in birth registrations due to the coronavirus pandemic and the need to monitor the potential impact of COVID-19 pandemic on births. Provisional births data are based on NHS Digital birth notifications which is a document completed by the doctor or midwife present at the birth. ONS published 2 ad-hoc provisional births releases

Please note that final figures for 2021 will not be available until summer 2022. Provisional data would be based on birth notifications and as such would not be directly comparable with other birth statistics derived using birth registrations.

Unfortunately, we do not hold data regarding stillbirths and the vaccination status of the mother.

If you have any further queries about this information, please contact us via email at Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.

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