Women are to have access to safe, high-quality and nationally consistent maternity care, under Ireland's first National Maternity Strategy.

It was developed following a number of baby deaths at Portlaoise Hospital and the death of Savita Halappanavar at University Hospital Galway.

According to midwives, the document should give mothers more options to give birth.

Chairperson of the Association for Improvements in the Maternity Services, or AIMS, Krysia Lynch has said the stated goal that maternity services are woman-centred makes sense: “Well you hope that all maternity care services are certainly woman centred and woman and child centred where they need to be.

“So I think that probably is a given, but it is good to have that I think as a starting point.

“So that we are not focusing on particular deficits in particular units, or we are not focusing on particular amounts of money that need to be invested that we are really starting with the woman and what she actually needs at any point in time.”