A handout for expectant mothers to spend on fruit and vegetables to help ensure their child is born healthy proposed in September has been upped from £120 to £190.
The one-off payment will be made to women after 25 weeks of pregnancy, from April 2009.
The initiative - named the Health in Pregnancy grant - will cost more than £100 million a year and is aimed at cutting the gap between infant mortality between rich and poor.
The initiative has been criticised as a "silly proposal", and critics claim there is nothing to stop mothers-to-be from spending the money on alcohol and cigarettes.
Others said the wait until the 25th week of the pregnancy means it could be too late to have a real impact on child health.
Babies born to low-income families are twice as likely to die within a year as those born to middle class parents. The government intends to reduce this gap by ten per cent by 2010.
But critics said the real problem affecting infant mortality is the chronic shortage of staff in overstretched maternity units.
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the King’s Fund think-tank, said: “This is a silly proposal. The case for one-off payments to new mothers to get them to improve their diets is far from convincing.
“Financial incentives can be effective, but work best when payments are regular and sustained and when addressing simple health behaviours.
‘Quite how a limited cash payment seven months into a pregnancy will have any impact on the health of the child or the mother is hard to see.”
Alison Garnham, joint chief executive of the Daycare Trust, said: "We know that the health of mothers during pregnancy is a very important predictor of children’s outcomes, so we welcome this extra boost for expectant mothers, which will help give children the best start in life.”
No comments yet