For the past 6 months the women of Ireland along with their partners have had to endure the great difficulty of going through their ante-natal appointments and post-natal recovery alone due to Covid-19. Thankfully for most of these women their pregnancy is very straight forward and they are back home after a few days with their new bundle of joy to their partners. But for some women this is not the case. 

My name is Laura and I am currently 23 weeks pregnant with my fourth baby. Sadly my first pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage back in 2009. Thankfully my second pregnancy we gave birth to a beautiful girl called Ellie. I had an extremely hard labor with Ellie which resulted in a lot of post natal recovery and having my husband by my side through this was really an amazing help. On my third pregnancy we gave birth to another beautiful baby- this time a boy called Zach - who unfortunately was born with a very complex heart condition which was undetected through the pregnancy. Zach’s heart condition didn’t didn’t cause huge problems until after the first 24 hours of life which is when he became really sick really quickly. Zach spent the first four months of his life in Crumlin hospital with the amazing nurses and doctors there and currently he is a typical 19 month old boy full of mischief. Luckily throughout all my scenarios my husband was there during every single second of it. He was my tower to lean on. Now I am 23 weeks pregnant with my fourth child. Next week I have an appointment to have a foetal echo done to hopefully rule out any congenital heart defects with this pregnancy. The chances of having one baby is 1 in 100. The chances of this re-occurring is now 1 in 20. I made a call today to the hospital to ask if my husband could come along to this appointment given our history and the answer I got was no. Please god all will be well I will be coming home smiling from ear to ear. But say it’s not. Say I get told that unfortunately there is something wrong. Who do I have to turn to at that very moment. A stranger? I NEED my husband like a lot of other women out there did and will do too. 

I don’t blame the hospital for this. They are simply following government guidelines. But this needs to change. Not every mother who goes into hospital for a check up gets the perfect scan photo and amazing news. Not every mother who has just given birth is able to get out of bed and look after their new born. Not every new born is as healthy as what it first appears to be. And for the women whose pregnant and labor is textbook and all goes according to plan they are no different to me. Women NEED to see their partners afterwards. Babies NEED to see their fathers and fathers NEED to see their babies. 

Our government announced yesterday that pubs are re-opening in less than 2 weeks. If this can happen why can men not be allowed in to visit their girlfriends/wives and newborns. I am not asking for full blown visiting hours and full access to all ante-natal appointments but I am asking that the government at least review these restrictions and allow partners into anamoly scans and for a couple of hours visiting each day after the baby is born. I have done everything along with the majority of Ireland our government has asked in dealing with this pandemic. Now I ask them to please review this matter

So please sign this petition and let’s make a change for the women and men in Ireland today. Thank you for taking the time to read and sign.