Researchers, through a recent study, have found that babies born in hospitals in England at weekends have higher death risk as compared to babies that were born on weekdays.

The researchers found that mothers of babies born on weekends are also more likely to develop infections. Study lead author Dr. Paul Aylin, of Imperial College London's School of Public Health, said, “More work needs to be done to better understand the causes of these differences, so that steps can be taken to improve outcomes for mothers and babies”.

The study published in the journal BMJ, Aylin's team analyzed data from 675,000 births at English National Health Services hospitals from April 2010 through March 2012. They found that 4,500 babies died within seven days of birth.

In a study, including more than 1.3 million births, researchers found there were 7.1 deaths per 1,000 babies delivered at weekends. They also noted that the deaths were nearly 7% higher than weekdays.

As per the estimations by the study authors, if the risk of death related to weekend births was the same as for babies born on weekdays, there would be 770 fewer newborn deaths across England each year.

Also, if the infection risk for mothers who delivered babies on weekends as on weekdays were similar then there would be 470 less infections cases in a year.

Some previously conducted studies have found that patients admitted to hospitals on weekends have a higher risk of death, but the results were contradictory from studies that looked at birth outcomes and day of birth.