About Bliss

We champion their right to receive the best care by supporting families, campaigning for change and supporting professionals, and enabling life-changing research.

Bliss was founded in 1979 by a group of concerned parents who discovered that no hospital had all the equipment nor the trained staff it needed to safely care for premature and sick babies.

Determined to do something, these volunteers formed a charity to give vulnerable babies the care they deserve. 40 years later Bliss has grown into the leading UK charity for the 90,000 babies born needing neonatal care every year.

Our vision

Bliss’ vision is that every baby born premature or sick in the UK has the best chance of survival and quality of life.

Our mission

We exist to ensure all babies in neonatal care:

• have the best chance of survival
• have well-supported parents playing an active role in their decision-making and care
• are cared for in neonatal environments that best support their development
• benefit from neonatal research that can lead to practical improvements in their care
• receive high-quality care within a neonatal health system which is appropriately funded, structured and staffed.
  
  

Over the next three years (2022-2025) our ambition is for every baby born premature or sick in the UK to benefit from our work and to have the best chance of survival and quality of life.

Trusted

We are entrusted to give voice to all babies born premature or sick. We believe that trust is earned and our actions must always be based on what is best for babies.

Supportive

We believe that developing supportive relationships is at the heart of what we do, and only by supporting others are we able to achieve our goals.

Ambitious

We always go the extra mile to deliver excellence and seek improvement in all we do.

• Over 60 per cent of babies in neonatal care are born full term but sick. The five most common conditions are respiratory problems, infection, hypoglycaemia, jaundice, and asphyxia/HIE.
• 60,000 babies are born prematurely in the UK each year and most premature births are spontaneous, with no clear cause. Many of these babies will need urgent neonatal care after birth.
• Premature birth can result in life long conditions such as cerebral palsy, behavioural and long term health problems. Some research has also found that the earlier a baby is born the higher their risk of having special educational needs at school.
• The UK has one of the highest rates of premature birth in the world, ranking 134 out of 184 countries. This is higher than many countries in Europe and higher than Peru, Chile and Egypt.
• The emotional and financial burden of having a baby in neonatal care can be huge. Parents are more likely to suffer from post-natal depression and on average they spend an extra £282 per week while their baby is in hospital.
• Premature birth is the leading cause of death among children under one in the UK, and children under five worldwide.
• The average length of time a baby spends in neonatal care is eight days but babies born at less than 27 weeks of pregnancy spend an average of 93 days in hospital.
• The average cost to the NHS of a day of neonatal care is £805, meaning that if every baby spent just one day less in neonatal care a staggering £60 million would be saved each year.
• Two-thirds of units in England do not have enough medical staff to meet safety standards and 70 per cent of intensive care units look after more babies than is safe.

Read all facts and statistics

• Neonatal Data Analysis Unit - 2015 report
• National Neonatal Audit Programme - 2016 Annual Report on 2015 data
• NHS Improvement - Reducing harm leading to avoidable admission of full-term babies into neonatal units
• Battersby, C., Michaelides, S., Upton, M. and Rennie, J. BMJ - Term admissions to neonatal units in England: a role for transitional care?
• Data from the Office of National Statistics (ONS)
• Data from the Information Service Division Scotland
• Data from the Public Health Agency
• Gill, J. and Boyle, E. BMJ - Outcomes of infants born near term
• MacKay, D., Smith, G., Dobbie, R. and Pell, J. Plos Medicine - Gestational Age at Delivery and Special Educational Need
• WHO - Born Too Soon: The Global Action Report on Preterm Birth
• WHO - Preterm birth
• RCPCH - State Of Child Health Report 2017
• Carson et al. BMJ - Risk of psychological distress in parents of preterm children in the first year: evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study
• Bliss - It’s not a game: the very real costs of having a premature or sick baby
• Mangham, L., Petrou, S., Doyle, L., Draper, E. and Marlow, N - The Cost of Preterm Birth Throughout Childhood in England and Wales
• Fisk, N. and Atun, R - Systematic analysis of research underfunding in maternal and perinatal health
• Bliss - Baby report 2015: hanging in the balance