To ask the Secretary of State for Health what research has been (a) funded and (b) carried out by her Department into stress in unborn children; when her Department last undertook an evidence review on the issue that drew on (i) UK and (ii) international research; and if she will make a statement. (142834)

The Department’s National Institute for Health Research has recently awarded funding for a trial of the use of the hyperemesis impact of symptoms score for individualised assessment and management of the symptoms of hyperemesis gravidarum. Research on fetal and birth stress also forms part of the work programme of the Hammersmith and St. Mary’s and Imperial College Biomedical Research Centre which the Department is funding from April 2007.

Over the last 10 years, the main part of the Department’s total expenditure on health research has been devolved to and managed by national health service organisations. Details of individual NHS supported research projects including a number concerned with fetal stress are available on the national research register at www.dh.gov.uk/research.

The Department has not undertaken an evidence review of the sort to which the hon. Member refers.