Outrage af ter HSE pulls plug on water births
THE HSE has been criticised for its decision to stop offering at-home water births.
The services will no longer be provided through the National Home Birth Service, due to a ‘small number of incidents’ in recent months.
The HSE said the decision was made for the health and safety of women and their babies while reviews into the incidents are carried out. Krysia Lynch, chair of the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services in Ireland (AIMS), said the group is demanding an explanation as to why the service was pulled.
‘Services shouldn’t be pulled by offering choice and we’re supposed to be adhering to the National Maternity Strategy,’ she told the Irish Daily Mail. ‘If you’re going pull those services, you would need to have very, very good reason to pull it, and there’s been no reason whatsoever to pull the service.
‘The question remains, why did the service get pulled without any discussion with a service provider, without any discussion with service users? Why did that happen?
‘And that question hasn’t been answered to anybody’s satisfaction, which is why we would be calling on the HSE to reinstate that service immediately.’ Ms Lynch added that more and more women are looking for home births at the moment due to the current Covid-19 restrictions in maternity hospitals.
She s ai d water births are considered to be perfectly safe internationally, adding that this move is taking choice away from expectant mothers.
‘We have a huge bank of evidence sitting there showing that a water birth is an absolutely safe birth choice and evidenced birth choice for all babies that are born,’ she earlier told Newstalk Breakfast.
‘A cornerstone, key point in the National Maternity Strategy is offering choice: offering low-tech options, such as home births, offering water births and offering midwifery-led options.’
She continued: ‘ So obviously these aren’t for everybody, but one thing that we are all very much in unison about is the fact that people do have these choices. So, to suddenly pull one of these major choices without any investigation – without any warning, without any due process – goes very much against the HSE’s own protocol and obviously means less choice for people in Ireland.’
According to Ms Lynch, water births remain available in private hospitals, which she said runs the risk of the service now only being made available to wealthy people.
In a statement last night, the HSE said: ‘Following a small number of incidents in the HSE National Homebirth Service, HSE, in the interest of health and safety of women and babies, has temporarily paused facilitating planned water
Women ‘can immerse in water’
births in the home birth service.
‘What this means is that during your labour a woman can immerse in water but will have to leave the water for the birth of your baby. We appreciate that this may be disappointing for those who had planned on having a water birth at home. The HSE is committed to providing safe and effective care during pregnancy and birth, and it is for this reason that we made this decision while the reviews are undertaken.’