Majority travel more than 10 miles to give birth

WOMEN in Leinster, outside Dublin, have to travel farthest to hospital to give birth.

The survey reveals the majority of women travel more than 10 miles to have their baby, with 17.3 miles the average distance travelled. A third of women travel more than 20 miles while a fifth travel more than 30 miles.

This situation is likely to get worse if the Health Service Executive (HSE) goes ahead with plans under the Hanley Report to centralise services.

Women in Dublin travel more than eight miles on average. But their nearest neighbours in Leinster have to travel three times this distance for maternity units, while women in Munster, Connaught and Ulster travel an average of 18 miles.

Women in Munster are three times more likely to get private maternity care than those in Dublin, with a third of mums in the South choosing not to go public.

Most women around the country get their first antenatal check up 10-13 weeks into pregnancy. More than half of women in Munster get a check up 10 weeks into pregnancy, compared to a third of those in Dublin and 44% in Connaught and Ulster.

Waiting time in antenatal clinics — the biggest complaint among women — were shortest in Dublin, with an average queuing time of 42 minutes compared to 68 in Munster, 55 minutes in Connaught and Ulster and 62 minutes in the rest of Leinster.

Despite this, women in Dublin are more dissatisfied with the waiting time for antenatal clinics, and those in Munster and the rest of Leinster are the happiest.

Women in Dublin Hospitals went home sooner after birth than mothers in the rest of the country — 16% left within 24 hours after birth, while a third left within two days, and a third left three to four days after the birth of their child.

In comparison, a small percentage (5-6%) of women in Munster and the rest of Leinster left within 24 hours, while one-in-10 mothers in Connaught and Ulster left the same day.