Parents have welcomed the creation of a memory garden at the Old Holy Angels Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery, where 50,000 babies are buried.
At a meeting organised by the Dublin Cemeteries Committee and the Irish Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society (ISANDS) on Saturday, many parents also discovered for the first time that they can trace the exact location of their baby's grave.
The meeting was held to allow parents and other relatives to voice concerns over the planned project to convert the current burial plot into a garden of remembrance.
The Old Holy Angels Plot was used for the burial of stillborn or premature babies from the 1820s up to the late 1970s.
At the meeting, Mr George McCullough, chairman of the Dublin Cemeteries Committee, said the work was badly needed because the plot had subsided making it difficult for older people to get to graves.
The work involves killing off the old grass, using topsoil to level the area and re-seeding it.
There are also plans to construct walk ways between the graves, to erect benches and to plant trees.
Some parents were concerned that the paths would cover some graves, but were reassured that this would not happen.
Others were annoyed that there would be no way of acknowledging the lives of individual babies, as all the memorials and crosses erected by families all over the plot must be removed before work can begin.
Mr McCullough said, however, that families would have the opportunity to acknowledge their babies by having their names engraved on a memorial stone where memorials can also be placed.
Although there were some objections, the vast majority of the 400 people present agreed with the plans.
Ms Helen Lodge from Baldoyle has a sister buried in the old plot since 1951 and her own baby was buried in the new plot in 1985.
"It is just overgrown grass and it is run-down and neglected. This will be a great improvement. The idea of the seating is great and I'm glad to hear you can get your baby's name engraved on a plaque to be put in the main wall," she said.
Ms Ron Smith-Murphy, former chairwoman of ISANDS stressed that it would ensure that the plot could never again be used as a burial ground.
However, some people didn't agree with the idea of a garden. One man complained that the area would be sanitised and made into a clinical, military style garden, while Ms Mary Wall from Rathfarnham said she sees the Old Glasnevin Angels Plot as a very special and beautiful place, as it is now.
"I don't really want to go to a garden," she said. "If it changed I would be devastated."
A final decision on whether to go ahead with the development of the garden will be made by the Dublin Cemeteries Committee tomorrow.