Babies born at weekends in NHS hospitals are more likely to die in the first week of life than those delivered on weekdays, new research suggests.
Experts estimated 770 more babies die annually and 470 more infections occur among new mothers than would happen if performance was consistent across the week.
The findings, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), were based on a study of 1.3 million births in England between April 2010 and March 2012.