Many asylum-seekers having babies here live in hostels so cramped they have nowhere to put a cot, according to an unpublished Eastern Regional Health Authority survey.
None of the new mothers surveyed had the use of a bath, although they may bleed for up to six weeks after giving birth.
The accommodation in which these conditions were found by researchers include hostels funded by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
The report notes that the right of children born in Ireland to Irish citizenship is enshrined in the Belfast Agreement and "appears irrevocable".
And it outlines a procedure by which asylum-seekers who opt for abortion can get travel papers from the Department of Justice which allow them to return afterwards.
The research study, The Maternity Care Needs of Refugee and Asylum-seeking Women, was produced by Dr Patricia Kennedy, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University College Dublin, and Dr Jo Murphy-Lawless, Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, Trinity College Dublin.
It was conducted for the Women's Health Unit, Eastern Regional Health Authority.
The researchers interviewed 61 women, most of them from Nigeria and Romania but also including women from Kosovo, Cameroon, Ghana, Ukraine and elsewhere.
"There were no cots for babies anywhere we interviewed and mothers and babies/young children were sharing single and double beds," the report says. "In some settings, there were en suite toilet facilities and a shower, which were shared amongst all the residents in each room. In some cases, not even these were available, and the toilets and showers available on each floor were dirty."
Women did not have cots for their babies because "there was no room in bed-and-breakfast/hostel accommodation for cots".
The women "registered distress about not being able to buy toiletries needed in the late stages of pregnancy. One woman reported not having sanitary towels and being refused when she asked for these in hospital. Others reported being too embarrassed to ask in the hospital for such items as sanitary towels."
"One woman," the report says, "reported how she limited her diet in the last weeks of pregnancy so that she could buy baby clothes."
In relation to hygiene, the report says: "We never came across a woman who had access to a bath despite the fact that women are advised to have regular baths after childbirth. Also, it is important to bear in mind that women bleed for up to six weeks after childbirth, and the women in this study were in a situation where they had no control over when their bedclothes were changed."
Usually they had no right to use the kitchens to cook for themselves, had no facilities for sterilising babies' bottles and had to store food in their bedrooms.
Where a woman has received non-directive counselling from the Irish Family Planning Association and wants an abortion, "the IFPA writes to the Department of Justice, informing officials of the following: the woman has a confirmed pregnancy; she has had non-directive counselling; she has made an appointment in England for a termination; and that she needs papers to enable her to travel. Temporary papers are then issued to her, enabling her to travel to England for a termination and then return to Ireland."