{"id":561867,"date":"2026-07-22T03:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T03:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/561867\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T03:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T03:52:16","slug":"share-your-experience-of-pregnancy-and-giving-birth-in-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/561867\/","title":{"rendered":"Share your experience of pregnancy and giving birth in Ireland \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maternity care is a topic that has consistently been in the news in recent weeks. First there was the political row over the Rotunda hospital<\/a> continuing to permit private maternity care by consultants on public-only contracts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then there was the U-turn on the practice by the Rotunda, amid a push for the gradual removal of private maternity care in the State\u2019s public hospitals – a situation about which many women have expressed concern and dissatisfaction.<\/p>\n

Weeks later, retired obstetrician Peter Boylan wrote an opinion piece in The Irish Times<\/a> calling on the HSE to revise the National Clinical Practice Guidelines on Labour \u201cwithout delay\u201d. <\/p>\n

Describing the concept of latent phase of labour as \u201cdangerous\u201d, Boylan said women were lying in antenatal wards or being sent home in pain while getting regular contractions. <\/p>\n

Women previously told us about how they were begging for pain relief<\/a> while pregnant but felt dismissed and unheard.<\/p>\n

We want to hear from you about your experiences of maternity care and giving birth in Ireland.<\/p>\n

How did you find the care you received during and after your pregnancy? Did you experience difficulties breastfeeding, challenges accessing services, or postpartum depression – and if so, what was the support you received like? Did you opt for a home birth? Were you alone when you gave birth, or did you have a birth partner helping you through it? Whatever your experience, The Irish Times wants to hear from you. <\/p>\n

You can let us know what you think using the form below. Please limit your submissions to 400 words or less. Please include a phone number for verification purposes only. We will keep your contact details confidential. If you would prefer to remain anonymous in any published articles, please indicate this in your submission.<\/p>\n

We will curate a selection of submissions for an article but please note we may not publish every submission we receive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maternity care is a topic that has consistently been in the news in recent weeks. First there was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561868,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[66376,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-561867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-have-your-say","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561867","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=561867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}