A £254m UK funding package will expand reproductive health access for millions of women and girls across 54 countries.

The government said the investment will support family planning for more than 15 million women each year and could prevent 14 million unintended pregnancies and more than 35,000 maternal deaths by 2028.

The funding will expand access to contraceptives and safe abortion products, as well as medicines and equipment for maternal and newborn healthcare.

Women will be supported to access family planning products including condoms, pills, implants and coils.

The programme will also provide equipment to improve early detection of post-partum haemorrhage, severe bleeding after childbirth, and treatments shown to reduce severe bleeding by almost two thirds.

Kirsty McNeill, minister for development, said: “It is a scandal that women and girls are denied the fundamental right to make informed choices about their own body, free from coercion, discrimination and violence.

“Every woman and girl should be able to make decisions about her own future. That choice can mean staying in school, finding work or surviving childbirth.

“The funding I have announced will help give millions more women and girls across the world autonomy over their bodies, control over their futures, and the chance to fulfil their full potential.”

The funding will be delivered through the CHOICES programme, working with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) across more than 50 of the world’s poorest countries, including conflict zones.

An estimated 259 million women who want to avoid or delay pregnancy are not using safe, modern contraceptive methods.

The government said it will also work with national governments to support sustainable health systems as countries transition away from donor funding.

Maternal deaths have fallen by 40 per cent since 2000, but progress has been uneven, with 70 per cent occurring in sub-Saharan Africa.

CHOICES operates in more than 50 countries, including Afghanistan, Chad, the Gambia, Malawi, Sudan and Yemen. It focuses on countries with the highest rates of death in childbirth and lowest rates of contraceptive use, as well as providing emergency support during humanitarian crises.

UK parents affected by pregnancy loss before 24 weeks will gain a legal right to up to two weeks of unpaid leave from April 2027.

The entitlement will cover miscarriage, terminations and unsuccessful IVF embryo transfers, giving those affected a formal right to time away from work following a loss.

It will also apply to partners, the other biological parent and intended parents in a surrogacy arrangement.

Vicki Robinson, chief executive of Miscarriage UK, said: “We welcome today’s announcement that bereavement leave for pre-24-week pregnancy loss will become law in April 2027, with an increased minimum of two weeks’ leave and an entitlement that recognises partners, too.

“This is an important step in recognising pregnancy loss as a bereavement and the profound impact it can have, and we hope will provide a baseline for employers to go further.

“We still strongly believe bereavement leave should be paid, and we will continue to press for this through our Leave for Every Loss campaign.

“We will continue work with Government to ensure the detail and guidance provide meaningful and compassionate support for everyone affected by pregnancy loss.”

There is currently no legal right to bereavement leave following pregnancy loss before 24 weeks.

The change follows campaigning by parents who experienced pregnancy loss without formal recognition of their loss.

An estimated one in five women in the UK experience a miscarriage during their lifetime.

The new entitlement is intended to provide greater consistency for families across Great Britain following pregnancy loss.

Women entering pregnancy with multiple long-term health conditions face higher risks of miscarriage and other complications, a UK study found.

Those with two or more pre-existing physical or mental health conditions had a 20 per cent higher risk of miscarriage than women with no long-term conditions.

They also had more than twice the risk of venous thromboembolism and around four times the risk of antenatal anxiety and depression.

The UK-wide research team analysed 2,225,701 pregnancies and birth events recorded between 2000 and 2022 across five datasets covering England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Women with multiple long-term conditions had a 69 per cent higher risk of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy and a 42 per cent higher risk of pre-eclampsia.

The women also had a 32 per cent higher risk of placental abruption and a 26 per cent higher risk of gestational diabetes.

Risks rose as the number of existing conditions increased.

Among women with three or more long-term conditions, the risk of venous thromboembolism was more than three-and-a-half times that of women with no long-term conditions.

Researchers said the findings had implications for maternity services, where care pathways are largely centred on individual conditions and may not adequately meet the needs of women with multiple long-term conditions.

Dr Kelly-Ann Eastwood, joint senior author and honorary lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast and consultant obstetrician at St Michael’s Hospital, Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, said the results “help define” the urgent clinical challenges facing women entering pregnancy with multiple long-term conditions and the clinicians caring for them across the UK.

“These findings highlight the pressing need to restructure existing maternity services to improve antenatal outcomes,” she added.

The authors cautioned that the study was observational and relied on routinely collected health records, meaning some conditions and outcomes may have been under-recorded, while residual confounding could not be excluded.

The researchers plan to examine birth and child outcomes and identify which combinations of long-term conditions carry the greatest risk.