Irish women are particularly dissatisfied with post-natal services at home, with 45 per cent of them describing such services as "inadequate", according to a paper in the Irish Medical Journal by staff at the Department of Public Health, Southern Health Board. One-third of women feel that they are not given enough helpful advice at home.

This lack of support is significant for the health of mothers and babies, because hospital stays after giving birth have shortened dramatically over the past 30 years and women may be home again and isolated within 60 hours of giving birth. Adding to the crisis is the fact that Irish women are slow to ask for help when they run into postpartum health problems.

Thirty-seven per cent of mothers regarded the advice they got in hospital on their own and their babies' health as "insufficient". Most mothers - 82 per cent - did not see a public health nurse within the first 48 hours after discharge, as they should have. And when the nurses did appear, only 60 per cent were deemed by mothers to be "very helpful".

One-third of mothers breastfed their babies after returning home and they were significantly more likely to want advice and help concerning problems of feeding and settling their babies. The main concerns of mothers (25 per cent) centred on their baby's health, often related to feeding problems which were significantly related to both lack of advice and conflicting advice in hospital.

Giving mothers and babies a good start should be a priority of the health service. Instead, too many mothers experience the first weeks of motherhood as times of stress and confusion.