Number of Abandoned Babies

You asked

I am writing under the Freedom of Information Act to ask for the following information:

1. How many babies have been abandoned in the UK, year on year, for the past ten years.
2. How many were reunited with their mothers?

We said

Thank you for your query regarding abandoned babies.

The number of babies abandoned in England and Wales over the last year can be found in Table D (page 16) of our Births Statistics: Metadata, July 2015 publication.

ONS does not hold any information on whether these babies were reunited with their mothers.

Information on abandoned babies in Scotland would need to be requested from National Records for Scotland (statisticscustomerservices@nrscotland.gov.uk). Information on abandoned babies in Northern Ireland would need to be requested from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (census.nisra@dfpni.gov.uk)

Other special extracts and tabulations of births data for England and Wales are available (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreement of costs, where appropriate). You do not need to make a Freedom of Information request and can contact the team directly at: vsob@ons.gov.uk.