MILLIONS of women who suffer the heartache of miscarriage could be helped thanks to groundbreaking research.

One in five women in Britain loses an unborn baby including, recently, the Prime Minister's wife, Cherie Blair.

Now a team at Newcastle University has won a grant to try to pinpoint why certain women are prone to miscarriage.

They are hoping to develop an injection treatment which will "fix" the faulty eggs, especially those of older women wanting a family, who have a higher chance of losing their babies. The researchers believe that many eggs are "doomed" to fail even before they are fertilised, because of a chromosomal abnormality.

During the next two years the team, led by Dr Hayden Homer, will need at least 100 eggs from women who have had hysterectomies or are having IVF treatment, for the pioneering study.

Dr Homer, a research fellow in reproductive medicine, who is based at the university and the International Centre for Life, said: "This is all very unique and experimental.

"We are the only team in the world to be studying early egg development and miscarriage. We are hoping to find out what the fault is with these doomed eggs by examining their first phase of maturation."

The team will use eggs from hysterectomy patients who do not need them and from women undergoing fertility treatment where they have no chance of being fertilised.

Dr Hayden and his team are hoping that once the fault is pinpointed a protein injection treatment can be developed to fix faulty eggs, so they can mature.

He said: "The only way to check for a chromosomal abnormality is by examining eggs, so this treatment would be mainly for older women who are maybe undergoing IVF to increase their chances of having a baby."

The project is being financed by Wellbeing, the fundraising arm of the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecologists.

Spokeswoman Sam Rideout said: "What has happened to Mrs Blair is precisely why research of this kind is being carried out.