Evelyn Ring Post-natal care for mothers in the country’s maternity hospitals is not up to standard because of staff shortages, a maternity care expert has said .

Post-natal care for mothers in the country's maternity hospitals is not up to standard because of staff shortages, a maternity care expert has claimed.

It will take at least another two years before ultrasound scans to pick up on foetal anomalies are available to all pregnant women in Ireland — and that’s only if funding is provided to hire one extra sonographer every fortnight.

LATEST:A Government TD has broken ranks to call on Health Minister Simon Harris to consider buying the €300m land on which the new National Maternity Hospital will be built in a bid to end the escalating scandal.

Demonstrations are to take place in Dublin and Galway tomorrow in protest at the State’s treatment of a suicidal, immigrant woman denied an abortion after becoming pregnant through rape.

WHEN Patricia O’Connor gave birth she eschewed offers of epidurals and other pain relief drugs, deciding instead to rely on the coping mechanisms she had learned while attending a GentleBirth programme which encourages women to use their own strength to birth their baby naturally.

The lives of pregnant women and unborn babies are being gambled with due to a “geographic lottery” when it comes to standards in the country’s maternity services.

The hospital a first-time mum chooses for the delivery of her child is likely to have a huge bearing on whether the infant is born naturally or by caesarean section, according to new birth statistics.

Caesarean babies are more likely to become overweight adults.

A woman’s choice of maternity hospital may dictate the type of labour she has as latest figures show a wide variation in medical intervention rates in the country’s maternity hospitals.

Patients and doctors alike have backed claims that some maternity services are a danger to women.

A woman who lost a legal challenge to allow her to have a home birth has avoided a massive legal bill.

THE true scale of the miscarriage misdiagnosis scandal will not be uncovered unless the scope of the investigation is expanded to include the past 10 years, it has been claimed.