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PHOTOS Irish Birth Movement calls for greater choice in maternity care options
Irish Birth Movement calls for greater choice in maternity care options. Picture: Olena Oleksienko/ilovelimerick
Campaigners from the Irish Birth Movement gathered in Limerick to call for greater maternity care options in Ireland
Irish Birth Movement (IBM) campaigners gathered on Limerick’s Beford Row this weekend to highlight the lack of maternity care options for women in Ireland almost a decade since the introduction of the National Maternity Strategy (NMS).
The group’s mission states that “Nearly a decade after the National Maternity Strategy promised safer care with more choice, too many women have fewer options, rising intervention rates, and a postcode lottery for services. That’s not good enough—for mothers, babies, or midwives”.
Among the key demands by the group is the call for “real choice of place of birth” as the group calls for the development of midwifery-led birthing centres in all 19 maternity units and the restoration of public home birth services, including reinstating suspended programmes in areas such as Limerick.
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Sandra Healy, a midwife and founding member of IBM told I Love Limerick that the group is organising similar rallies in Sligo and Dublin on October 27. She told I Love Limerick, “The home birth has been suspended in Limerick. Private midwives have closed. So the women of the Midwest really have no options but a hospital, and we are not against hospital birth.
“We believe hospital birth is really important, but what we really believe is that women have a choice. Some women want a home birth, some women want a birth centre, some women want a hospital.”
Sandra says that although the NMS promised “all sorts of things” that the group believe “we have gotten very, very little from it”.
She said, “Today is about highlighting to the public that women deserve better. Women deserve more choice. They deserve options. And what we really want people to do is sign our petition to show their support.”
The midwife called on the public to join the movement or to approach TDs and politicians to ask for their support in “getting more choice for women”. She said, “Women deserve better. They deserve informed consent. They deserve trauma-informed care. They deserve so much better. Our babies deserve better. And I think of my daughter growing up, having babies. I really, really want better for her. So that’s why we’re here today.”
Limerick-based Antenatal and Hypnobirthing Teacher, Jennifer Whelan, said, “What we want to do is implement the National Maternity Strategy. It was promised to us in 2016. We’re nearly 2026, and there’s no sign yet. We deserve change in Ireland by implementing the National Maternity Strategy. This can have a massive impact on our women in Ireland, our birthing women, families, and the children that are born. So it’s really important that we get behind this rally and support implementing the National Maternity Strategy.”
Pictures: Olena Oleksienko/ilovelimerick
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