A quarter of all babies born in the UK are the children of immigrants as mothers from Poland, India and Pakistan give birth in record numbers

There were 200,000 births to immigrant mothers in Britain last year

Office for National Statistics reveals 4 in 10 of these children born in London

Fertility rates for non-UK born women are higher than for those born here

Polish women living in the UK gave birth to 23,000 children last year.

Immigrant mothers: More than a quarter of births in Britain last year were to mothers born outside the UK

Almost a quarter of babies born in the UK are children of immigrants, according to latest statistics.

There were 808,000 births in the UK last year, of which 196,000 were to non-UK born mothers - or 24 per cent.

Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows there has been a steady increase in the number of births to mothers who were born abroad since 2001, when the figure stood at 15.3 per cent.

Polish women who live in the UK gave birth to around 23,000 children last year.

Women from Pakistan had 19,200 babies in the same period and Indian women gave birth to 15,500 children.

Four in 10 children born to immigrant mothers were born in London. 

Half were born in other parts of England, and one in 10 were born in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland combined.

The ONS said fertility rates for non-UK born women are higher than those born in the UK.

Figures: Graph showing live births in Britain between 2007 and 2011 to women from the top five countries (Office for National Statistics)

The total fertility rate for women born in the UK is 1.89 children each, while for those born outside the UK the figure is 2.28.

The figures show that in 2007, 14 per cent of women living in the UK aged 15 to 44 had been born outside the UK. This rose to 18 per cent last year.

Poland, Pakistan and India were the most common countries of birth for non-UK born mothers in the between 2007 and 2011, according to the ONS. 

On the rise: A graph showing the percentage of live births in the UK to non-UK born mothers between 2001 to 2011

Marked difference: Pyramid of the female population living in the UK. It shows the number of births for UK born women and non-UK born women, between 2007 and 2011

However, general fertility rates (GFR) for women born in Pakistan was significantly higher during that period than the fertility of women born in India or Poland. 

All three countries had higher fertility using this measure than women who were born in Britain.

In total, foreign-born mothers giving birth in the UK last year came from more than 200 different countries.

The geographical distribution of births to mothers born abroad was also found to vary according to the country they came from.

General fertility rates for the top five non-UK maternal countries of birth and for UK born women in 2011. Pakistan is markedly highest, followed by Nigeria

For example, while the number of births in London is similar for women born in Poland and Nigeria, the proportion of the total births they constitute for that country of birth is not - the ONS reports.

Births in London represented less than a quarter of total births to women born in Pakistan and Poland respectively in 2011, but 60 per cent of births to women born in Nigeria.

This demonstrates that children born to women born in Nigeria are highly concentrated in the London area - whereas there are many more births to women born in Poland or Pakistan in the rest of England than in London. 

Baby boom: More than four out of ten births to foreign mothers last year were in London (file picture)