London Evening Standard/London

More than a quarter of all births are now to women who arrived in Britain from other countries, figures showed yesterday.

Official data revealed there were 724,000 births in 2011 — of which 26%, 185,000, were to mothers themselves born abroad.

By far the highest birth rates were to Somali and Afghan women, many of whom fled violence in their own country. Since 2001 the birth rate to UK-born women had risen, but was still far below that of mothers who travelled here from elsewhere.

A spokesman from the Office for National Statistics said: “Some groups have a strong cultural preference for small or large family sizes, and this affects the number of children they have. This can vary between different groups when combined with migration, as some groups choose to follow their cultural norms, whereas other groups will adapt to UK-born patterns.”

The ONS also said the high level of financial and social support in Britain may encourage women to have more children when they arrive.

The data showed the proportion of all babies had by non-UK born mothers rose from 16% in 2001 to the 26% 2011 level. While the birth rate increased among UK-born women over the same period, from 1.56% in 2001 to 1.84% in 2011, it lagged behind the 2.21% of foreign-born women.

The highest birth rate, 4.25 was amongst women from Afghanistan, closely followed by those from Somalia, 4.19%, and Iraq, 3.91%.

A civil war in the Eighties and Nineties led to a large number of women settling here from Somalia. Many people have also fled violence that has occurred during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

However, the highest actual number of babies for any non-UK group was had by Polish mothers — who gave birth to 20,495 children. Polish women gave birth to more babies than any other ethnic group in 2009, 2010 and 2011 due to the large increase in immigrants after their country joined the European Union.