Nearly 500,000 foetuses are being incinerated every year in batches of hospital waste including soiled swabs and used syringes, according to an investigation by the Royal College of Nursing due to be disclosed today at its annual conference.
The union found that government guidelines introduced 10 years ago to ensure "sensitive and respectful" disposal of all foetal material were being widely flouted.
Environmental legislation to stop hospitals polluting the air by incinerating their waste has made it impossible in most areas for local managers to deal with foetal remains on their own premises.
As a result about 10,000 foetuses every week are transported to 37 regional incineration units where they are burned with clinical waste material produced by the NHS.
"When women realise this is not being done sensitively, we know there will be a lot of distressed people," the union said.
The RCN will today publish its own guidelines to ensure that all foetuses are buried or cremated with sensitivity and parents are given the opportunity to attend. It said: "Current practice is felt to be completely unacceptable by health professionals working in the field."
The union said the problem centred on foetal remains from early miscarriages and abortions, usually in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
According to the Miscarriage Association, there are around 300,000 of these early miscarriages each year, ending about a quarter of all pregnancies. In addition there are about 180,000 terminations.
The RCN said there were satisfactory arrangements for dealing with foetal remains from about 30,000 later miscarriages. Under guidelines introduced in 1995 by the Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society, parents in these circumstances should be offered the choice of an individual cremation or burial, paid for by the NHS. Many hospitals offer hand and foot prints of the foetus and some offer books of remembrance and regular remembrance services.
But Lesley Allan, a gynaecology charge nurse at St Mary's hospital in London, and a member of the RCN gynaecology working group, said: "Miscarriage in later pregnancy is uncommon. Only 1% of pregnancies will end in miscarriage after 12 weeks. We have collected information from hospital trusts and clinics about what was happening to the earlier miscarriages."
The union identified several hospitals that were disposing of foetal remains in an exemplary manner. They included Nottingham city hospital, Nottingham Queen's medical centre and the Royal Bournemouth hospital.
The new guidelines will attempt to build on this best practice by encouraging nurses to negotiate improvements elsewhere.
They recommend communal cremations or burials when the family choose not to be involved and individual ceremonies when the family choose to attend.
• Nurses warned yesterday of a dangerous epidemic of women choosing to have their babies by caesarean section, under the influence of pop star role models who are "too posh to push".
The Royal College of Nursing agreed by an overwhelming majority to campaign to reduce the proportion of caesareans which has risen from less than 3% in 1970 to about 20% last year. Carolyn Basak, chairwoman of the union's midwifery society, said: "As rates continue to rise, women and families may be at risk."
