People

Question Time on The Women’s Podcast: What should a woman pack in her maternity hospital bag?

This week we want to know about the items you think help make a stay in a maternity hospital that bit more pleasureable

Tue Feb 23 2016 - 06:00

Each week on The Women’s Podcast, we ask listeners a question. This week we are getting ready for our ’Birth of a Nation’ 1916 podcast which will be recorded in Dublin’s Rotunda hospital and we have maternity experiences on our minds:

What items would you tell a woman she absolutely has to bring in her overnight hospital bag when going in to give birth? What did you bring that you could not have done without?

Guest presenter Sorcha Pollak told listeners: “We know about the pads, nipple or otherwise, but what other things would make a woman’s stay in maternity hospital that little bit more pleasureable?”

Tell us what you think by emailing thewomenspodcast@irishtimes.com or messaging us on Facebook or Twitter @ITWomensPodcast.

READ MORE

On the latest edition of the podcast, we dusted down our time machine - every woman needs one - and looked ahead to next week when the votes have been cast, the election posters have been taken down and the new and not so new politicians are back in Dail Eireann.

In our series of ‘Dear New Dail’ letters, women have been writing to the next government about some of the issues they hope politicians might get to grips with during the 32nd Dail.

In her letter social justice campaigner Alice Leahy had a lot to say about access to State services, local authority housing and struggling families.

Comedian Tara Flynn’s letter reminded the new Dail of a topic that has been raised on the doorsteps with more frequency than perhaps during any other election: abortion.

The writer Ruth Fitzmaurice spoke from her perspective as a mother of five young children and wife of filmmaker Simon Fitzmaurice, who has motor neuron disease and requires 24-hour care in their home.

Also on the podcast, Nadege Doyle’s letter about the barriers to education faced by non-Catholic children. And Direct Provision campaigner Ellie Kisyombe wrote: “It makes economic sense to see people as contributors to Irish society rather than keeping them caged and stripping them of the fundamental things that make us human.”

Individual episodes of the The Women’s Podcast are available on Soundcloud, iTunes, Stitcher and on irishtimes.com.