Returning to Ireland to give birth

[emigrant2023]

GRMA for reading.

I'm wondering if anyone has experience of living abroad and returning to Ireland during pregnancy (and thus transferring care) from another EU country back to Ireland (Dublin, in all likelihood).

I'm interested in the experiences of others, and any advice on practicalities. I'm assuming I'd be a fully private patient (maybe the EHIC covers the essentials?). My health insurance where I live would likely only cover an unplanned birth abroad.

Please share your wisdom, mná na Craicnet!

How long do you intend staying? If you’re planning on staying at least a year you would be covered under the public system. Equally if you have proof of an Irish address issued in the last 12 months you might be ok.

I don’t have direct experience but would be wary of going fully private unless you have some sort of insurance. It can get expensive very fast. My youngest was born eight years ago - the room fees for me were 1k night, he was in the NICU for a week which was around 1k per night on top. Consultant fees were around 5k for overall care during pregnancy. Can’t remember what the epidural costs were. If you needed a C Section it could be even more again.

Not personally no, but an Irish friend of mine who lived in Germany and experienced ante-natal care in both Ireland and Germany was far more impressed with the German
health care system.

I moved back to have DS. 22 years ago though. And not from another EU country so not sure how useful my experience was.

We we’re living in a country where most expats left to have their babies anyway as the medical care wasn’t great.

We also had private health insurance.

I just emailed the hospital I wanted to use and asked what was possible, gave history etc. I was put on the Master of the hospital’s private list. I was an older mum and it was considered a higher risk pregnancy as it was IVFA.

Every thing went well. Everything was covered by ur insurance cost wise as far as I remember but we deliberately had a policy that covered childbirth.

I returned home from the UK at 17 weeks pregnant and there was no issues with transferring care. I had to start again though and had a dating scan at 19 weeks 🤣 I went public but I was settling back home again and not returning to the UK

Can you look into an S1 form from your country of residence to use in Ireland? I think that's the correct one, it's for reciprocal medical treatment of a planned nature, where an EHIC is not appropriate. So someone could travel to another EU country for an operation because they will have family support in that country, and not where they reside. Then when they have sufficiently recovered tracks back to country of residence. It should also cover giving birth, but a lot of people won't have heard of it. Check with your public health insurance as a starting point.

I think it completely depends on which country. I absolutely love loving in Ireland, but I'd choose to have another birth in England if it were a choice between the two (and that is also obviously based on a lot of personal circumstances and preferences for birth- mainly: choice, autonomy, a water birth, midwife-led and and minimum time in hospital)