The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department says bereaved parents have welcomed the opportunity of free cremation services for foetuses that are stillborn early in pregnancy.

The department says that in the six months since it opened, the Home of Forever Love at Kwai Chung Crematorium has accepted 37 applications from parents for the handling of stillborn foetuses below 24 weeks' gestation, which are referred to as abortuses.

The facility also handled 132 unclaimed abortuses from public and private hospitals, as well as other medical facilities, since it opened in September. The foetuses would otherwise have been treated as clinical waste.

Karen Law, a senior health inspector at the department, said the facility offered parents more choices, and a dignified resting place for their foetuses.

"Abortuses of less than 24 weeks do not meet the requirements for obtaining the certificate of stillbirth and any other relevant documents, so all the crematoria in Hong Kong can only provide cremation services for the deceased who have obtained [a relevant certificate]," she said.

"The commencement of the cremation service gives the public more choices on funeral arrangement and offers a decent resting place for abortuses."

Law said parents may choose to scatter the ashes at designated gardens or put them in abortus keeping facilities.