Ireland’s maternity care system has been heavily criticised by a UN convention

The Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe has now agreed that Ireland’s “over-medicalised” system of maternity care is due a massive overhaul.

This watchdog report comes after Irish midwives have lobbied intensively to reduce the practice of speeding up labour and end what they see as the “production line” – which can often leave women delivering babies within eight hours of being admitted to hospital.

A report late last year revealed that there has been a fourfold increase in the rate of Caesarean sections in Ireland over the past 30 years, and while this has helped lower the death rate among mothers and children in childbirth, it is also a number that is much higher than the average in other industrialised countries – and exceeds the recommendations by the WHO.

This is what chair of Midwives for Choice in Ireland, Philomena Canning, had to say to the Irish Independent:

“This is the second time Ireland’s industrialised system of maternity care has been criticised by an international body.”

Canning explains that women in Ireland should have access to maternity and delivery services without time pressure or being exposed to artificial methods of speeding up birth, and says: “We strongly support the international calls for maternity care that respects the needs and choices of individual women.”

During Ireland’s human rights examination in February this year in Geneva, the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women called on the Government to ensure that women can access maternity services that do not use artificial methods to accelerate labour and that respect the normal birth process.