Dozens of Sussex women are having to give birth in places other than designated hospital labour beds, new figures have shown.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed 83 women in the county were unable to give birth in a labour bed in 2008.

This figure, which excludes planned home births, is up 20% from the 69 in 2007.

The Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton saw 35 incidents while 48 took place at Eastbourne District General Hospital (DGH) and the Conquest Hospital in St Leonards.

While exact details of the Sussex births were unavailable, 4,000 cases across England included unplanned home births, births in an ambulance, children being born in transit to hospitals, in A&E departments and in postnatal or antenatal wards or areas.

Most of the births were genuine emergencies and unavoidable but others were down to staff shortages and services being overstretched.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust runs maternity units at the Royal Sussex and Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath.

Debbie Holden, the trust’s head of midwifery, said: "There will always be a small number of women who give birth in areas other than maternity wards.

“In the vast majority of cases this is because the baby arrives unpredictably quickly, not because the maternity ward is full.

“The staff on ante and post natal wards, doctors in A&E departments and paramedics are all trained to deliver babies, so women who deliver in most of the areas mentioned are actually in perfectly safe hands.

In 2008 only eight women delivered their baby before getting to the hospital and that number has stayed the same for the last four years."

A spokesman for East Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs the DGH and the Conquest, said: “There is always the possibility that a woman could give birth sooner than expected.

“When this occurs, there is sometimes insufficient time for the woman to make it to hospital to give birth.

“The majority of cases in the figure quoted for the trust involved women giving birth sooner than expected at home.

“If a mother goes into labour and cannot be admitted to hospital for any reason, the trust has contingency plans that involve on-call midwives and ambulances being sent out to ensure the mother and baby is given the best care possible in a safe environment.”

The actual number of births outside of hospitals in Sussex is likely to be higher because Western Sussex Hospitals Trust, which runs hospitals in Worthing and Chichester, did not respond to the Freedom of Information request made by the Conservative Party.

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: "New mothers should not be being put through the trauma of having to give birth in such inappropriate places. While some will be unavoidable emergencies, it is extremely distressing for them and their families to be denied a labour bed because their maternity unit is full."

The Government's Care Services Minister, Phil Hope, said: "Giving birth can be unpredictable and it is difficult to plan for the exact time and place of every birth.

“Local health services have plans in place to ensure high quality, personal care with greater choice over place of birth and care provided by a named midwife.”

The Argus revealed earlier this month that women in labour were turned away from hospital maternity units in Sussex more than 80 times between April 2008 and March 2009 because there was no space for them.