Mothers not born in the UK account for ten per cent of the 14.3 per cent rise in the birth rate in Bradford and Airedale over the past decade, figures reveal.

The number of births in the district rose to 8,200 a year in 2006 and out of the extra 14.3 per cent of births, Eastern European mothers accounted for two per cent of the rise - 162 births in 2006.

The figures come after it was reported that the NHS's costs of providing maternity services for foreign-born mothers had risen to more than £350 million a year.

Record levels of immigration have pushed up the cost by £200 million in the past ten years, according to analysis by the BBC.

Bradford and Airedale Teaching Primary Care Trust, the body which commissions health services for the local population, spent £19.99 million on maternity services between April 2006 and March 2007.

It is projecting costs of maternity services between April 2007 and March 2008 of £21.65 million - an increase of £1.66 million.

The Trust's main maternity service providers are Bradford Teaching Hospitals, Airedale Hospital, Leeds Teaching Hospitals and Calderdale Hospital. In Bradford's maternity unit last year, more than 50 different nationalities of mums were recorded.

Critics say the Department of Health has been "caught by surprise" by the rising birthrate.

While the number of babies born to British mothers nationally has fallen by 44,000 a year since the mid-nineties, the figure for babies born to foreign mothers has risen by 64,000, pushing the overall birthrate to its highest level for 26 years.

Spending on maternity services has risen from £1 billion a year to £1.6 billion since Labour came to power but Professor Philip Steer, editor of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, said: "The Department of Health has been taken by surprise.

"The demographic change, the sheer numbers, has in some areas increased very substantially without there being any forward planning really to allow for that."

However, a spokesman for Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the maternity unit at Bradford Royal Infirmary, said: "The Trust's maternity service is used to responding to the changing needs of patients and the health challenges that can occur as our local population becomes more diverse.

"In maternity, the Trust is looking at the way it responds to language needs and the way its clinics are run in order to best meet the needs of all the patients that we serve."

Dame Karlene Davis, general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives, said: "The Royal College of Midwives believes that all women should be given access to maternity care in this country, irrespective of their immigration status.

"Midwives want to give them the best possible care, as they do with all women, but the continuing shortage of midwives means this is becoming increasingly difficult."

A Department of Health spokesman said: "People who move from the European Economic Area to take up permanent lawful residence in the UK as workers, students or on a self-sufficient basis are considered part of the local population and are entitled to maternity care."

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