Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps NHS England is taking to test pregnant women for infections that can cause stillbirth.

On the advice of the UK National Screening Committee the NHS Infectious Diseases in Pregnancy Screening Programme is offered in England. It aims to identify pregnant women with syphilis, hepatitis B, HIV and susceptibility to rubella so they can be offered appropriate follow-on tests and treatments so the risk of the infection being passed on to the child can be substantially reduced. Syphilis is a bacterial infection that is usually caught by having sex with someone who is infected. Pregnant women can pass the condition on to their unborn baby, and if untreated syphilis can cause serious health problems for the mother and her baby, or cause miscarriage or still birth.