Further written evidence to be reported to the House
Health and Social Care Bill
12:00 pm
Rosemary Dodds: The important thing is the intention of the payment. Originally, there was a lot of discussion about impact on birth weight and prematurity, but the intention of the payment has not been made clear. In order to answer the question about what the impact would be, we need to know the intention of the grant. If the impact is desired on birth weight and on prematurity, my understanding is that even 25 weeks is too late, from the evidence base, to have much impact. If the intention is to support pregnant women and to support new families—their health in general but also in a wider sense—that needs to be measured differently.
A contribution of £190 I am sure would be welcome because it is a time, as I have pointed out in the evidence, when families are particularly under stress and low-income families obviously are harder hit. The stress of being in debt or having a very low income is an additional factor in pregnancy-related disorders.