IN AN OPINION piece published in The Irish Times last Saturday, I warned about deficiencies in the current HSE National Clinical Practice Guidelines for Labour, most acutely in relation to the outdated concept of ‘latent phase’ labour – when a woman is told she is ‘not in established labour’ – and the resulting denial of pain relief to labouring women and appropriate monitoring of their babies.

Since publication and subsequent coverage in the Irish Times and on RTÉ, Newstalk and elsewhere, I have been contacted by many women and couples traumatised by their experiences of labour. This was often with their first babies, with mothers told they were less than 4cm dilated and therefore ‘not in established labour’, noted as ‘NIEL’ in patient records.

Many told me they were discharged home only to be rushed back to hospital, or that they delivered in an ambulance, or had an unplanned home birth without any professional assistance.

Other women on antenatal wards, who were repeatedly told they were in the ‘latent phase’ of labour found themselves suddenly rushed to the labour ward, often approaching or at full dilation, in a chaotic process that frightened them. For many it was too late to be given adequate, or indeed any, pain relief and their babies heart rate had not been appropriately monitored.

The trauma of such experiences can last a lifetime.

Many senior colleagues across the country, both........

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