The North-East is placing more unborn babies on the child protection register than any other region in England.

Department of Health figures show that 119 unborn children were placed on the register by local authorities in the North East. The next highest figure was London with 106.

The rate of drug abuse among young parents which has risen because of the cheap supply of heroin in the North East is being partly blamed as the cause of the figures.

But some professionals also believe that the figures are unreliable because different regions may have different approaches to recording the figures.

Head of children's services for Middlesbrough Council Jan Douglas said that the figures returned by individual authorities would depend on how robust that authority was on the way it collated figures. Her own authority has the second highest figure for unborns at risk in the region.

"I think my authority has a very robust approach to collecting figures," she added.

She also said that Teeside had the cheapest heroin in the country and that drug misuse was the main reason for unborn children to be placed on the register. In the North-East, heroin use rocketed last year by 200 per cent.

In Middlesbrough, there was a multi-agency approach to dealing with pregnant drug users to ensure that their children were not put at risk.

"You cannot take risks with newborns," said Mrs Douglas, who added that social services staff would expect to see immediate efforts by a mother to deal with her drug problem if the she was to avoid having her children removed and placed in care.

The babies of these mothers are often born with an addiction to the drug and have to be given morphine - a heroin derivitive - and weaned off the drug gradually with all the usual withdrawal symptoms adults addicts suffer.

Some can suffer developmental delays and possible intellectual impairments as a result, said Mrs Douglas.

She said that some of the children of drug abusers were removed and put up for adoption but stressed that she did not want people who misused drugs to feel that their children would automatically be taken into care.