PM's wife suffers miscarriage

Cherie Blair suffers miscarriage.

The prime minister's wife, Cherie Blair, was resting at Chequers yesterday after suffering a miscarriage at home in Downing Street on Monday evening and spending the night in hospital.

Mrs Blair, who will be 48 in September, was last seen in public being drenched by the Manchester downpour on Sunday which marked the closing ceremony for the Commonwealth Games. With her husband and four children she had just spent four days on holiday in Cumbria.

Mrs Blair, a busy QC who gave birth to her fourth child, Leo, in May 2000, 12 years after Kathryn was born, is said to have known she was pregnant, though the precise stage was not revealed last night. Leo was the first baby born to an incumbent prime minister since the 1840s.

News of the miscarriage emerged only because reporters waiting at Toulouse airport to see the Blairs arrive at the start of their French holiday were surprised that neither of the children's parents was with them. Mrs Blair's mother, Gale Booth, accompanied them.

Media assumptions that Mr Blair's non-appearance must be connected to the crisis over Iraq had to be quashed. In a statement Downing Street confirmed Mrs Blair's admission "to the Chelsea and Westminster hospital last night for an operation after a miscarriage. She had an operation under general anaesthetic and was discharged this morning".

Mr Blair was with his wife and later joined her in thanking staff at the NHS hospital where their son Leo was born. Appealing to the media to leave them in peace when they arrive at the villa they have rented in Gascony, No 10 said the Blairs hoped for as normal and quiet a holiday as possible. Mrs Blair's miscarriage, although distressing, will not come as a total shock. At least one in five pregnancies ends that way, and miscarriages become increasingly likely as women age.

Last year Sarah Brown, the chancellor's wife, gave birth prematurely to a seven-month baby, Jennifer Jane, who lived for 10 days.

When Mrs Blair became pregnant with Leo the news was widely greeted with a mixture of surprise and amusement, though some hardline Blair critics went so far as to suggest that it was a pre-election stunt.

To most parents a Catholic professional woman becoming pregnant again in her mid-40s looked more like an accident.

But Mrs Blair shows every sign of enjoying Leo and - it was said - of letting her husband get up when he cried in the night. Her mother has been a vital support.

For the over-40s, the miscarriage rate is 23.1%, up from 6.4% in the under-35s. Just as the chances of conceiving a baby slump, so the chances of carrying one to term steadily drop.

Most miscarriages occur before 12 weeks of pregnancy, the point at which a woman begins to feel much more secure about her chances of giving birth. Experts cannot fully explain why miscarriages occur, but the two most likely explanations are a genetic defect in the foetus and the failure of the fertilised egg to implant properly in the womb lining.

Expressions of condolence were led by John Prescott, the deputy prime minister, and party leaders including Charles Kennedy, who is still on honeymoon.