Immigrants have fuelled a mini-baby boom in Britain over the last decade, with one in four children now born to a record 200,000 foreign mothers a year

New figures show that the number of immigrants having babies has doubled since 2001, largely driven by an influx of Polish, Pakistani and Indian mothers. This has been the main reason behind an increase in the overall British birth rate to its highest level in decades, with 808,000 births in 2011, compared with 670,000 in 2001. The spike in the birth rate is biggest in London, where six in ten babies are now born to immigrants each year. Women from Poland, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Somalia, Germany, South Africa, Lithuania and China have the highest number of babies. The proportion of foreign-born women of child-bearing age living in Britain has increased from 14% to 18% since 2007, giving them a substantial impact on the overall number of births.