{"id":197975,"date":"2025-12-18T08:20:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T08:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/197975\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T08:20:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T08:20:07","slug":"if-men-gave-birth-maternity-hospitals-would-be-palaces-and-wed-get-three-years-off-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/197975\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018If men gave birth maternity hospitals would be palaces and we\u2019d get three years off\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aodh\u00e1n \u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in<\/a> is ending his 40s quite differently to how he began them. \u201cWhen I turned 40 I\u2019d no kids. And now I\u2019m nearly 50 I have three,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The Labour MEP\u2019s youngest daughter R\u00f3is\u00edn was born prematurely a few days ago at 26 weeks\u2019 gestation, weighing a tiny 2lbs 3oz (the weight of a 1kg bag of sugar).<\/p>\n

She\u2019s doing well though, he says, and he\u2019s hoping he\u2019ll get to hold her in a few days. \u201cIt\u2019s really more positive than we could have hoped, but stressful for all that, because you have an image in your head of what a newborn looks like, and this doesn\u2019t really compute with the image. She\u2019s very small and there\u2019s tubes and things.\u201d<\/p>\n

R\u00f3is\u00edn\u2019s birth comes at the end of a difficult pregnancy for \u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in\u2019s partner Nicola Byrne. Byrne is a nurse and the couple have two children together. Their other daughter Sadhbh is 1\u00bd. He also has a daughter, Anna (7), with his ex-wife, broadcaster Aine Kerr. \u201cThe first 40 years of my life … being a father wasn\u2019t something that I prioritised, or thought much about. Now it\u2019s a huge part of my life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m conscious of my age. I\u2019m 50 next year. I reflect on that, how good I\u2019ll be in 10 years\u2019 time or 20 years\u2019 time, because when R\u00f3is\u00edn\u2019s 21, I\u2019ll be 71. It does make you reflect on the balance in your life and how much time you give to things, and the quality time that you spend with your kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in explains that Byrne\u2019s waters broke when she was just 18 weeks pregnant. \u201cAt that point, certainly I thought it was over. And we had an emotional conversation at that point about how we would manage this and tell people\u2026 We got through that and she was still kicking away. But then there was a particularly distressing night where there was a significant bleed and we had to rush to the Rotunda, and neighbours were unbelievable to step in and mind the other little ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

He recalls the kindness of strangers that night as they arrived at the hospital. \u201cWe were sitting there in a very distressed stage. And we were politely asked to move the car. And a guy who was there with his partner \u2013 and you\u2019re not there at midnight on a Friday night unless you have to be there \u2013 said \u2018here, I\u2019ll move it for you\u2019.\u201d \u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in didn\u2019t take the man up on the offer, moving it himself, but the man \u201csat with Nicola and made sure she was okay\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe level of care, the professionals in the hospital were just absolutely incredible, and I think that ripples out to everybody else\u2019s attitude around the place,\u201d \u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in says.<\/p>\n

He describes the maternity hospital as a place \u201cwhere great joy meets great tragedy\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought we were going to be in the great tragedy side of things twice and then she just kept kicking away,\u201d \u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in says. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had to fly back from Strasbourg. And then I had to fly back from Brussels, expecting a birth at 24 weeks, and then a birth at 25 weeks. You\u2019re worried about the chances of survival. Then at 26 weeks and five days, because of the level of pain and discomfort, it was just unsustainable, the medical decision was to deliver her via c-section.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf men gave birth maternity hospitals would be palaces and we\u2019d get three years off. And there\u2019d be an awful lot greater attention on maternal care.\u201d<\/p>\n

The experience has made him think of a friend who lost his twins at 24 weeks. \u201cI remember he named them. And there was a ceremony for them. And I wasn\u2019t there. Work had me over in Turkey as a junior minister. And I\u2019ve always reflected on it. That was a wrong decision to make. Because life is short, tragedy is big, and it lasts a lifetime,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou remember the people who were there and prioritised you. That friend has been absolutely incredible to me over the last number of weeks, sending me messages, asking me how things were, giving me little bits of advice, encouraging me along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in is hopeful that R\u00f3is\u00edn will get home in March. \u201cHopefully, in a few months\u2019 time she\u2019s home and she\u2019s happy and she\u2019s got two older sisters who are crazy about her and a wider family.\u201d<\/p>\n

He admits finding it \u201cchallenging to go in to see her, because she\u2019s so small and she\u2019s so vulnerable and there\u2019s tubes and wires\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"AodhánAodh\u00e1n and R\u00f3is\u00edn. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut you\u2019re encouraged to read, and Dublin City Council library section have books there that they\u2019re encouraging parents to read to their little babies in intensive care,\u201d \u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in says.<\/p>\n

Christmas Day will look a little different for him this year. \u201cWe\u2019ll take a trip into the Coombe.\u201d<\/p>\n

R\u00f3is\u00edn\u2019s care was transferred to the Coombe as they had more ICU beds, \u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in explains. \u201cChristmas Day is Christmas Day and we have so much to be thankful for and if the only slight irregularity is to take a bus into the Coombe, well we can do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were times in my life, before I became a father, where I didn\u2019t really look forward to Christmas because work was what preoccupied my head. Or I found the summer holidays very long, because I just wanted to get back … I\u2019m not in Strasbourg this week when I should be, but I think, like all professions, life has to give you space to be a human being and I think the European Union Institutions will survive without me for a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

In spite of the worry of the last few months there has been the odd bit of respite, distraction and laughter, \u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in says. \u201cAt a very sensitive point in the pregnancy, when it was touch and go, I asked Nicola could I go to the Ireland vs Portugal game. She said, \u2018yeah okay, go on\u2019. And I said, \u2018because if Ireland beat Portugal and I wasn\u2019t there I\u2019d never forgive myself\u2019. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, we managed to laugh.<\/p>\n

R\u00f3is\u00edn almost arrived at 23\u00bd weeks, around the time Troy Parrott was scoring the winner in injury-time against Hungary. \u201cI made a submission that maybe she should be called Troy, but no.\u201d<\/p>\n

The worrying pregnancy and the early delivery is \u201ca lot to get your head around,\u201d \u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in says. \u201cIt\u2019s on your mind the whole time and you can\u2019t escape it. I\u2019m away and I look at my phone when I wake up. And, hopefully, there isn\u2019t a phone call or a message to say something has gone wrong. You\u2019re checking in all the time. You\u2019re trying to do your job to the best of your ability, but you know that your head is elsewhere. And also you have to guard your other kids from it, because you don\u2019t want them to think that there\u2019s something wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had literally told Anna the baby\u2019s sex and we had discussed the name, which Anna had chosen. Anna had wanted Rose and we went for R\u00f3is\u00edn. We had told her on the Tuesday and the very next day we had a massive scare that she was coming early. I was on a flight on the way home and I thought that I was going to have to land to bad news and maybe have a very difficult conversation with my older daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven now, Anna can\u2019t come in to see her. She won\u2019t physically see her until March, and you\u2019re just unsure as to what kind of photographs of her will help, because there\u2019s a lot of tubes and wires and she\u2019s incredibly small.\u201d<\/p>\n

However it has been for him as R\u00f3is\u00edn\u2019s dad, he\u2019s conscious the ask is even bigger of R\u00f3is\u00edn\u2019s mum. \u201cNicola throughout all this has been absolutely incredible. To carry the pregnancy. To go through all that stress. To have the physical discomfort, the bleeding, the leaking, the pain. To have the c-section. The recovery from the c-section. And now the pumping. And obviously being in hospital for a month and missing Sadhbh, and Anna hugely. It\u2019s a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aodh\u00e1n \u00d3 R\u00edord\u00e1in is ending his 40s quite differently to how he began them. \u201cWhen I turned 40…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2121,69551,630,42,6189,43,9386,629,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-197975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-womens-health","tag-aodhan-o-riordain","tag-coombe-hospital","tag-headlines","tag-labour-party","tag-news","tag-pregnancy","tag-rotunda-hospital","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}