TALES FROM THE NURSERY: Where choice really matters

When I had my third baby, I was in a ward with five other mothers who were competing to see how long they could go without retrieving their babies from the nursery.

They felt they deserved a rest and they trusted the hospital staff to keep their newborns safe. This is one choice. Not all new mothers feel the same way and while some instinctively don't want to let their babies out of their sight, others feel that they will cope better after a good night's sleep. Who are we to judge?

In traditional societies, there were sisters, grannies and friends to care for the baby while the mother rested. Today's version is the private maternity nurse. I actually hear women criticising others for hiring maternity nurses, as though having help makes you less of a mother. This is reactionary nonsense. Babies do bond with their mothers during the crucial minutes following birth, but in the first few months of life they really don't mind who is looking after them.

Yet following the baby mix-up in Cork more parents are wondering if such a relaxed attitude is wise. It's an emotional subject. The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) wants to see babies rooming in with their mothers in all but exceptional circumstances. Twenty of the 22 maternity hospitals/units in the State are working towards achieving accreditation in this global initiative.

Does this mean that healthy, but tired mothers should be forced to keep their babies with them and that they should feel guilty if their baby spends a night or two in the nursery?

You're going to be a mother for the rest of your life, not just the first 48 hours. Some hospitals practise rooming-in so enthusiastically, that I know new mothers who would have appreciated a rest after the birth of their babies, and found it difficult to cope when they had the baby with them 24 hours a day from the beginning.

It seems to me that to enforce rooming-in, without providing the necessary support, is going only halfway to solving the problem. Most maternity units have staffing problems, so that a new mother may feel absolutely panicked on her own with her new baby. Yet she feels she can't be ringing the buzzer every few minutes for help.