'I longed for a hand to hold': calls growing for overhaul of maternity restrictions

Orla O’Connor, director of the National Women's Council of Ireland, said the issue of women being supported in pregnancy is not being taken with the seriousness that it needs to be.

The image of a father-to-be coping with Covid-19 restrictions has struck a cord online.

It shows a man standing outside a hospital “hours away” from his first child being born “waving up at herself from outside the hospital on the street”.