Mothers from China, Philippines and Australia give birth to fewer girls but 'no evidence' of sex-selective abortion A further seven countries, including Germany, Ghana, Nigeria, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, saw fewer than 103 boys per 100 girls born, which is also considered unusual. "Whilst there is a wide variation in ratios, there is insufficient evidence to conclude that this is not the result of cultural differences, genetic differences and random variation," the study said. The statistical technique used to calculate whether groups are different from the natural range generally requires groups to be large to identify unexpected ratios. As populations for many of these groups are small, this database is unlikely to be able to ascertain cases of prenatal gender selection. It also acknowledged there were "significant limitations to what these data can show because there are small numbers of births for most groups." "Large differences in birth rates would be needed to identify ratios outside the normal range," it said. The study comes after the Daily Telegraph identified evidence that some doctors were offering terminations based on gender. It caused Andrew Lansley, the former health secretary, to order an investigation into the "illegal and morally wrong" practice and a police investigation into three doctors. Lord Alton of Liverpool, a crossbench peer who campaigns against abortion, last night urged the Government to collect more data on the gender of aborted foetuses. "What needs to be done is not more speculative inquiries but a proper assessment after abortions have occured," he said. Where it's know what the gender is that should be carefully registered every time an abortion takes place. We do know the Telegraph investigations found evidence of gender abortions in the UK. But if you don't collect the evidence you'll never know the scale of it. Sex-selection abortions are thought to be behind a growing demographic imbalance in several countries where baby boys are more highly prized for cultural or economic reasons. In China, where the official one child policy has been in operation for decades, there are now 37 million more males than females in China. A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "We have found no groups in the UK where the birth ratio is significantly different from what we would expect to see occurring naturally," it said. We will continue to monitor ratios on a yearly basis.