Debate contribution: Mother-and-baby Unit

Debate contribution by Miss Órlaithí Flynn on 7 October 2025.

MLA

Miss Órlaithí Flynn

Party at the time

Sinn Féin

Date

7 October 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Mother-and-baby Unit

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5164584

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I beg to move

Go raibh maith agat, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle.

The motion calls for the urgent establishment of a dedicated mother-and-baby unit (MBU) here in the North of Ireland. It is about compassion, equality and the basic right of every woman to access the specialist care that she needs during one of the most vulnerable and transformative moments of her life. It is about ensuring that no mother ever again has to recover from birth in a psychiatric ward without her baby by her side.

Bringing a child into the world should be a time of joy, safety and dignity. It should mark the start of a hopeful new chapter in a mother's life, not one defined by fear, isolation or trauma. Sadly, however, for too many women in the North, that is not the reality. No mother should ever be separated from her baby in the days and weeks after birth, yet that remains the reality for women in our communities who experience acute perinatal mental illness. Those women are separated from their newborn babies and placed in general psychiatric wards. That is not compassionate care. Rather, it is a system that is failing women at their most vulnerable. Let me be clear about the severity of what we are dealing with. One in five women will experience mental health problems during pregnancy or after birth. That is very common. In the North, around 1,000 women each year will develop a severe postnatal illness, which can include postpartum psychosis, severe depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Devastatingly, suicide is the leading cause of maternal death here, but with timely and appropriate care, such deaths are preventable. I am thinking today about a particular family in my constituency of West Belfast who, tragically, have already experienced that type of loss. They lost a loved one to suicide not long after she gave birth to a baby. I try to put myself in that family's shoes and think about how they are feeling. As time passes, there is bound to be frustration about the lack of progress made on the establishment of the MBU. I therefore hope, for that family and all the families who have lost loved ones in that way and who are struggling, and for all the families who have gone through the experience of having someone placed in a psychiatric ward without their baby, that, when he responds to the debate, the Minister may give them a wee bit of hope about what comes next. Women who have experienced postpartum psychosis have described themselves as feeling like prisoners, having been abandoned in a psychiatric ward without their baby. They have spoken about enduring isolation, confusion and trauma at the very moment that they should be bonding with their newborn child. To illustrate that point further, I will share some testimony. A young mother from Belfast reached out to me in the past week when she saw that today's debate was coming up. Her name is Leah, and I had not spoken to her before. She reached out to me to share some of her experience. Leah's case is very current, as she began going through the process a short number of months ago and is still going through it. I send her and her wee baby my best wishes. When she reached out to me, she explained that, very recently, when her baby was just three weeks old, she began to experience severe postpartum depression. She was told that it was just the baby blues and that she would be fine in a few weeks. A few weeks came and went, and, instead, her condition deteriorated. She became suicidal, lost the precious bond that she had formed with her baby and was admitted to the mental health unit at the City Hospital. That was the first time that she had ever been apart from her newborn baby. In her own words, she described being forced to choose between stopping breastfeeding and starting to pump every four hours. Having to make what may seem like a very small decision, either to stop breastfeeding or to start pumping, imposes an unimaginable emotional burden and takes its toll on a woman who has just given birth to a baby and is already dealing with mental illness. That is on top of being separated from her baby. She told me that the staff were very kind and very good to her. That is an important point to make. I know that the staff in that unit are very good to their patients, and that has to be recognised. Not all of them, however, are trained or equipped to manage a postpartum mental health crisis specifically. The Assembly's all-party group (APG) on women's health has heard from numerous mothers who had been through the similar experience of being placed on a general psychiatric ward. I previously spoke about the matter at Members' statements. They were placed beside a smoking area and did not have access to the one of the basics that a woman deserves, which is proper bathing facilities to get a bath after going through childbirth.

In 2025, the island of Ireland, North and South, remains without a specialist mother-and-baby unit. Not one exists anywhere on the island, and that is a shameful distinction when compared with England, Scotland and Wales, which provide dedicated therapeutic spaces where mothers can recover alongside their babies, supported by teams of perinatal psychiatry specialist nurses, nursery nurses, psychologists and occupational therapists. That is what best practice looks like, and it is what women here deserve. We have been told — I am sure that we will hear an update on this from the Minister — that the Belfast City Hospital site has been chosen for a mother-and-baby unit and that work on the business case is well advanced. It is my understanding that the draft business case is now with the strategic planning and performance group (SPPG), which is very welcome, but I am hoping that we hear from the Minister and the Department today about a more definitive time frame for delivery. Women cannot wait for another five years. We heard of 2030 as a possible opening date, and that is simply indefensible. We remain cautious about short-term interim units, and we will get into a discussion on that with the UUP amendment. However, you do not want a short-term interim unit to become a good enough long-term solution. That is the problem with calling for that. What is clear is that we need to see some of that sort of action now to prevent further trauma being inflicted on women in those situations. The Exeter MBU featured in the BBC 'Spotlight' programme shows how a temporary unit, although not perfect, can provide safe, specialist care that keeps mothers and babies together during recovery. Hopefully, that can be put in place while plans for a permanent facility progress. Interim measures are welcome but cannot replace a properly resourced specialist mother-and-baby unit. Anything less continues a legacy of neglect that we should all be determined to end. There are legitimate questions about whether our system is meeting clinical and ethical standards of care for women with severe perinatal illness. Training remains inconsistent, especially among GPs, emergency staff and first responders. Equally concerning is the lack of reliable data. We do not know how many women in recent years have experienced postpartum psychosis or tragically died by suicide during or after pregnancy. That gap is not just a failure of record-keeping; it is a failure to fully value women's health and lives. We cannot change what we refuse to measure. Furthermore, we need to take a wider all-island view. Progress that is similar to ours is being made in the South. Their business case for a mother-and-baby unit at St Vincent's University Hospital, Dublin, is more or less ready to go but has not made it to the next stage, so we are still without a unit anywhere across the Thirty-two Counties. We now have an opportunity and, indeed, a responsibility to do things differently. This issue sits within a broader picture of delay and underinvestment in women's health. We have multiple debates in the Chamber on women's health issues. It was endometriosis last week or the week before. We have had conversations around gynae stuff. Hopefully, there will be good announcements around that, and we look forward to hearing those. This is basically about giving women, and mothers in particular, the dignity, safety and care that they deserve after having their babies. It is so important for a mother and baby to have that period to nurture and bond. Mothers and their wider families deserve that type of healthcare. I acknowledge and thank the groups and campaigners who have kept this issue to the fore, including clinicians, advocacy groups and family members. I am thinking of the maternal advocacy and support (Mas) project, the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, Action on Postpartum Psychosis, and journalists such as Marie-Louise Connolly, who continues to expose the reality that is faced by mothers. Their determination has ensured that this issue remains on the public and political agenda, but they should not have to fight so hard for something so basic. We now have the opportunity to put things right, to deliver a mother-and-baby unit on this island and to build compassionate perinatal mental health care.

1,567 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 13:21 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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