The best-known example of birth defects being caused by hazardous substances in the UK remains the babies born in the late 1950s and early 1960s with deformities caused by their mothers taking the drug thalidomide.

It was hailed as a "wonder drug" to treat conditions such as insomnia, morning sickness and depression and licensed in the UK in 1958. But it was withdrawn again in late 1961 after an Australian doctor told the Lancet he had identified an increase in the number of deformed babies born in his hospital, and found that all of the mothers involved had used the drug.

By then around 10,000 babies had been born worldwide who either had shortened arms or legs, or no limbs at all. A few of these "thalidomide children" won damages in 1968 and the rest were covered by a 1973 out-of-court settlement with Distillers, who made the drug. That compensation was later increased, though, after media attention and pressure from some of the firm's shareholders. Distillers and subsequently Guinness, which bought it, have had to improve the terms of the settlement several times and have paid or agreed to pay around £200m in total up until 2037 to the Thalidomide Trust, which distributes annual payments to the 455 people in Britain damaged by the drug.

More recently concerns over birth defects have centred on landfill sites. In 2001 government-funded research in the British Medical Journal said that pregnant women who live near a landfill site have a 1% increased risk of having a child with a congenital defect than those who do not. That could mean that about 100 babies a year are born with conditions such as spina bifida, abdominal wall and gut problems, and 2,500 more with a low birth weight.

In addition, women whose home is close to a landfill site which contains hazardous waste had a 7% greater chance of having a baby with a deformity.