Woman in limbo over costs in home birth case

An expectant mother who lost her High Court case to require health chiefs to enable her to have a home birth has been left in limbo after the HSE failed to show up for a hearing on the costs of the action.

Aja Teehan now has no idea if she will be left penniless by the case or if she can risk continuing her legal battle by appealing yesterday’s High Court ruling to the Supreme Court.

The hearing on costs was put back to Sept 6 but the university lecturer, from Thomastown, Co Kilkenny, will be just over a month from her due date then and running out of time to make decisions regarding her next step.

“Whether or not we will continue to the Supreme Court, we will have to be conscious of the financial burden that that would leave us with,” said Ms Teehan.

She took the case after the HSE decided she was not a suitable candidate for a home birth and refused to provide insurance cover for any midwife who would assist her.

The mother-of-one had a caesarean section with her first child six years ago and it is HSE policy not to facilitate home births for women with previous caesarians, maintaining that they are at greater risk of complications, in particular rupture of the womb.

Ms Teehan argued in court that it was unfair for the HSE to impose a blanket ban without considering her case individually.

She said that she was fit and healthy with a perfectly normal pregnancy and minimal risk of complications, and should be allowed to try a home birth.

Giving judgment yesterday, Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley rejected Ms Teehan’s arguments, saying that Ms Teehan was seeking to compel the HSE to accept liability for a risk it did not believe was justifiable.

Ms Teehan was accompanied by her husband, Charles Brand, and was met at the court by a rally of several dozen mothers and babies showing their support.

She said afterwards that she was very disappointed by the ruling.

“I’m very disappointed in the failure once again by the legal system to defend the rights of women or parents,” said Ms Teehan.

“It’s not really about me trying to have a home birth. It’s about trying to defend the rights of women to make decisions about their various birthing options.”

She also said it was “scandalous” that the HSE was not represented in court in the afternoon when Ms Justice O’Malley was due to consider the issue of costs.

The Association for the Improvement of Maternity Services in Ireland described the no-show as “intimidation” by the HSE.

Philomena Canning, an independent midwife who supported Ms Teehan’s case, said the High Court ruling was a blow to many women who she said were unnecessarily excluded from home births because of overly restrictive insurance clauses.

“We are supposed to have, or we claim to have, women-centred medical care policy but we might as well rewrite all those policy documents and taken take women-centred out of them,” said Ms Canning

The HSE did not comment last night.