Fears now being expressed by An Taisce — that a new national children’s hospital will not be co-located with a maternity hospital — were first raised months ago by independent paediatric specialists.

There has been a “marked reduction” in alcohol consumption among pregnant women, according to new research.

The Coombe Women’s Hospital is facing a multimillion-euro bill after a High Court judge ruled it is liable for catastrophic injuries suffered by a boy minutes after his birth at the Dublin hospital.

A location for the new long-awaited National Children’s Hospital could be revealed as soon as tomorrow after it is discussed by the Cabinet.

SHE could have been sooo last year, but half a minute made all the difference in turning baby Amelie Rose into this year’s newest headline grabber.

I WISH to congratulate you for your perceptive leading article (‘Master plan must be reconsidered’, October 12).

An expectant mother who went into labour while being removed from a protest sit-in at a branch of Thomas Cook gave birth to a baby girl under Garda protection today.

WORKING long hours is an occupational hazard when it comes to pregnancy, according to a study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (BJOG).

THE best Christmas presents were still wrapped yesterday — in swaddling clothes and baby grows.

THE Health Service Executive (HSE) will ask the High Court today for an order so it can give a blood transfusion to severely anaemic twin babies after they are born.

ABOVE the giddy jingling of New Year’s bells rose the noisy jangle of newborn howls as maternity hospitals around the country kick-started the business of delivering babies in 2008.

TWO consultant obstetricians have won a High Court order overturning as “unlawful” findings of professional misconduct against them by the Medical Council over their 1998 reports about the obstetric practice of Dr Michael Neary at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.

Women’s lives could be put at risk due to rising birth rates at Dublin’s maternity hospitals, it was claimed today.

ONE of this week’s news spectaculars was Ian Paisley launching Dana Rosemary Scallon’s autobiography, All Kinds of Everything. Anywhere else, that would have been just another photo-op but in Northern Ireland it was an event of real significance.

IRELAND’S cleanest acute hospital is Mallow General Hospital in Cork, according to 8,000 patients and relatives who took part in an online survey of the country’s public hospitals.

THE Medical Council acted unfairly and unlawfully in finding that two consultant obstetricians were guilty of professional misconduct over reports exonerating the obstetric practice of Dr Micheal Neary at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, the High Court was told yesterday.

TWO hospital consultants found guilty of professional misconduct by the Medical Council for exonerating disgraced obstetrician Dr Michael Neary can challenge its findings, the High Court decided yesterday.

ALMOST 50,000 babies born in eight maternity hospitals in Ireland every year are to benefit from a research programme that aims to reduce infant sickness and mortality before and soon after birth.

HEALTH warnings on bottles and cans of alcohol are expected to form part of the State’s response to a new study which reveals how much expectant mothers are drinking while pregnant.

A LEGAL challenge by two doctors found guilty of professional misconduct will be met head-on by the Medical Council.

TWO hospital consultants found guilty of professional misconduct are to seek a judicial review in the High Court of the Medical Council’s findings against them.

THE HUMAN Rights Commission (HRC) has begun a preliminary investigation into brutal operations carried out on Irish women by religious run maternity hospitals in the 1950s to 1980s.

A DOCTOR found guilty of professional misconduct will continue in his role as president of a world- renowned medical society.

THE Medical Council’s decision to put on its website transcripts of the investigation into three disgraced doctors who had exhonorated the appalling practice of Drogheda obstetrician Dr Michael Neary deserves to be applauded.

HEALTH Minister Mary Harney has set a deadline of St Patrick’s Day for the establishment of a redress scheme to compensate women damaged by disgraced obstetrician Dr Michael Neary.

A ground-breaking cervical screening initiative drawing together academic institutions, hospitals and biotechnology companies was granted €1.25m in funding today.

THE maternity survey included interviews with 500 Irish and 100 non-national mothers, with babies aged 0-24 months.

A man accused of killing his wife 10 years ago has been found not guilty of her murder at the Central Criminal Court toady.

The jury of a trial of a man accused of murdering his wife ten years ago will re-commence its deliberations tomorrow morning after they failed to come up with a verdict.

The jury at the trial of man accused of killing his wife ten years ago are expected to start deliberating on a verdict sometime later tomorrow.

The trial of man accused of killing his wife 10 years ago has heard from the man with whom she was having an affair that they were planning to move in with each other and have a child.

The trial of a man accused of murdering his wife ten years ago has heard that the dead woman was besotted with her younger lover, the Central Criminal Court heard.

Health service bosses are considering an offer from a private development consortium to build a new National Children’s Hospital on a non-profit basis, it emerged today.

REGULAR cervical cancer screening could save the lives of 75 Irish women yearly, an Oireachtas committee heard yesterday.

Traces of MRSA have reportedly been discovered at the Coombe Women's Hospital in Dublin.

THE number of expectant non-national mothers presenting to one of Dublin’s three maternity hospitals in the very late stages of pregnancy has increased since last year’s citizenship referendum.

BED numbers are expected to be increased at a Dublin maternity hospital next year so they can help mothers-to-be who can’t be treated at Holles Street because of its planned cap on numbers.

A CAMPAIGN group for families whose loved ones had organs retained without their knowledge is appalled that a major acute hospital kept a dead man’s brain for almost two years without informing his next-of-kin.

NATURAL childbirth can help boost newborn babies’ immune system, an Irish study has found.

THE master of the Coombe Women’s Hospital has made a fresh appeal to the mother of the baby boy found abandoned in Dublin city at the weekend to come forward.

IRISH scientists have developed a new test which can save lives by more accurate identification of women at risk of developing cervical cancer.

“MY daughter is devastated. She sat yesterday with her dead baby in her arms all day.She still had it in her arms this morning.

PREGNANT women risk damaging their babies because of their drinking habits, a conference on alcohol was told yesterday.

The Coombe Women’s hospital is restricting visits for Maternity and Gynaecological patients.