Her Third Baby, Any Day Now
Somewhere in Cork this week, a woman is waiting for her third baby.
She left a few lines under a petition. "I'm having my third baby with Domino midwives any day now and I absolutely love the support at such an unpredictable time."
That is the whole case, really. Support, at an unpredictable time.
The Domino scheme at Cork University Maternity Hospital was simple. A woman met a small team of midwives. They did her checks in the community. One of them helped deliver her baby. Then a midwife came to her home in the days after, to help with feeding and everything else that worries new parents at 3am.
Over 400 pregnancies went through it in 2024 alone.
This autumn, that changed. CUMH is short of staff, with about 80 vacancies according to the nurses' union. Domino midwives were moved onto the labour ward. The Department of Health calls it a "temporary redeployment". Post-natal care now goes through a different early-transfer service.
The Department says the change will be reversed in 2027. It has not said when in 2027.
Today a petition with more than 2,500 names goes in at the hospital. It asks for one thing: bring Domino back in full.
Grace O'Brien, a former CUMH midwife who helped organise it, put it plainly. "I just can't make sense of it because it is actually the most cost-effective approach." And: "they're literally robbing Peter to pay Paul."
Her point is worth sitting with. These midwives helped women go home early and well. They took pressure off the wards. Pulling them in to ease the pressure may only add to it later.
There has been some movement. The 24-hour phone line has been put back, it is understood. A Labour city councillor welcomed that as a positive step. "We still need a clear timeline for the full restoration of the service," she said, "and assurances this won't happen again."
Cork City Council backed the service across party lines. It was raised in the Dáil, where Social Democrats health spokesman Pádraig Rice said it was being "cut to the bone".
None of this is about blame. Midwives are stretched. Managers are trying to keep labour wards safe. That matters.
But here is what we keep coming back to. A country shows what it values by what it protects when money and staff are tight. Continuity of care for a mother is not a luxury. It means she is known by name, by the same few faces, from first check to first week home.
If we want every mother to feel supported in welcoming her child, what does it say when the gentlest support is the first thing set aside?
And what would a mother tell us, if we asked her, about the difference one familiar face made?
Somewhere in Cork, a baby is due any day now. That baby will never read a petition. But that baby will be born into whatever care we decided was worth keeping.
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