Sir, - I refer to the report "Board backs home birth plan despite objections" (The Irish Times, June 28th), in which GPs are quoted as describing home birth as an "act of insanity" and "crazy".
Their choice of words is unfortunate and they achieve two purposes. Firstly, it reduces the home versus hospital debate to an emotional rather than rational level and ignores a large amount of research on the topic. It also ignores the scale and effects of unnecessary interventions undertaken in labour and childbirth in Irish hospitals which render hospital births unsatisfactory for many women.
This debate, however, should not be limited to the place of birth but should be broadened to incorporate the fundamental issues of choice, control, continuity of care and carer and ultimately "partnership" in the process of pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period - a physiological process for the majority of women. The actual debates about retrospective diagnoses and what constitutes a pathological or physiological process can continue on a professional level. What must occur, though, is the implementation of schemes that attempt to bridge the gap between what is happening in the Irish maternity services and what women say they want.
Secondly, the words "act of insanity" and "crazy" undermine the intelligence and status of women and reduce them to mental incompetents. This attitude further serves to isolate people who are vocal enough to demand partnership from professionals and processes that are so often paternalistic.
We welcome the setting up of schemes of this nature, not just in Galway, but throughout Ireland. We hope that there are enough midwives, obstetricians and general practitioners around who fundamentally believe in women's rights to choice, control and continuity of care and carer to make these and other schemes a realistic alternative for all women and families in the future. - Yours, etc.,
Deirdre Daly, Secretary, Midwives Section, Irish Nurses' Organisation, Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2.