Research by Sands shows average number of stillbirths has fallen 1.8% since 2000 compared with 3.5% in Poland

British women are more likely give birth to a dead baby than women in Poland, Croatia or Estonia, new figures show.

There were 3,563 stillbirths – a rate of 4.6 per 1,000 births in 2014, the latest year for which figures are available, according to the Office for National Statistics.

A separate study in the Lancet medical journal found that Poland, Croatia and Estonia have lower rates of stillbirths than the UK. On average the number of stillbirths in the UK has fallen 1.8% since 2000, compared with 3.5% in Poland and 6.8% in the Netherlands, the research found.

The high number of stillbirths shows we are not listening to women properly | Rebecca Schiller Read more

The World Health Organisation defines stillbirth as death after 28 weeks of pregnancy – by which time most babies would survive outside the womb. In November the international health body put the UK’s stillbirth rate at 2.9 per 1,000 births. The reason for the discrepancy with the new figure is unclear.

The Royal College of Midwives has warned of a maternity care “time bomb” as a shortage of midwives and a record number of births to older mothers puts maternity units under pressure.

The year before last is believed to be the first year on record when the NHS employed more than a thousand midwives in their 60s. The number aged 65 or over rose from eight in 2001 to 177 last year, the RCM said.

With 661,496 babies born in England last year, almost 100,000 more than in 2001, the RCM said in its 2015 state of maternity services report that the NHS was short of about 2,600 midwives – a situation made worse by the ageing of the midwifery workforce.

Meanwhile, the number of babies born in England and Wales to women in their 30s and 40s was up 6,859 in 2014, according to the same report.

Charlotte Bevan, of Sands, a stillbirth and neonatal charity, told the Sunday Times: “Our progress is way behind countries like the Netherlands, who are moving four times faster than we are to save lives.

“It’s devastating for families not just to think that their child might have lived if only they’d received the right care, but also to know that another child tomorrow will die in similar circumstances because units aren’t implementing guidance.”

She added: “We know 60% of babies who die before they are born and close to their due dates might have been saved if basic guidelines in antenatal care were followed. We have much of the information we need to save up to 600 lives every year.”

• This article was amended on 12 February 2016. An earlier version said that there had been 3,654 stillbirths and that Sands had “released the data to the Sunday Times before its official publication by the Office for National Statistics”. This has been corrected.

