Touchdown with a bump

You may have read in this paper recently that the National Maternity Hospital is considering admission quotas in an effort to cope with the baby boom. The hospital master explained the problem in stark terms. "It's like operating a flight to Boston," he said. "If more passengers turn up than expected, you can't pack them all on board." Why he picked that particular route, I don't know. But as somebody who has experienced both a flight to Boston and maternity - albeit as a passenger each time - I can see similarities.

There's a lot of stress involved in both, although given the advances in obstetrics, a flight to Boston is probably a higher risk to your health. Also, while patients in maternity hospitals can choose from a wide range of pain-relief options, travelling economy-class across the Atlantic is not something anyone should have to face without an epidural. If they offer gas, you should take that too.

Of course, the big difference between parenthood and Boston is that in the case of one of them, you can generally get a flight back. The other is a one-way ticket to an interesting but expensive destination where you won't get a proper night's sleep for five years. And yet, as our report showed, there's no shortage of people queuing up to check in.

Yes, while most areas of the economy are slowing down, the boom in the maternity sector shows no sign of abating. Ireland has always had a competitive edge when it comes to making babies, due to the combination of a large Catholic-educated workforce and traditionally low labour costs. And even as the high-tech industries that fuelled our economic miracle are scaling back, the low-tech business of baby production is forging ahead.

Second-quarter figures show births going "through the roof" at Dublin hospitals such as the Coombe and the Rotunda. Modern businesses boast of their ability to "deliver" to the customer, but few organisations are delivering quite as dramatically as these and yet they can hardly keep up with the demand.

The NMH, described in the report as "Dublin's most fashionable maternity hospital," is particularly stretched. I feel partly responsible. My wife and I availed of its excellent facilities twice in fairly quick succession during the recent past (if we go back anytime soon we'll get frequent flier points). And reading the latest statistics, I'm just glad we visited before it became really fashionable.

The figures for July were the highest since the late 1970s, which just underlines the connection between birth statistics and economic well-being. You'll recall that the late 1970s saw a false baby boom created by Fianna Fail's inflationary budget policies - although external factors, notably the visit of the Pope, played a part as well.

The current baby boom is the real thing, however, and on top of soaring admissions there's a midwife shortage. The problem may be the last great example of infrastructural deficit caused by our rapid economic expansion. Indeed, the report even referred to "delivery unit bottleneck": a phrase which conjures up AA Roadwatch bulletins saying: "Avoid Holles Street at all costs if you can - it's bump-to-bump there at the moment." That would be the nightmare scenario.

As I was saying, you'd wonder at the popularity of parenthood sometimes. No sooner has the Home Alone movie phenomenon stopped exploiting the fear of forgetting to pack your children when going on holiday, for example, than the International Herald Tribune this week reports a new parental horror.

America West Airlines has had to apologise for the second time in a month, apparently, for putting unaccompanied children on the wrong connecting flights. In the latest incident, sisters aged 11 and 8 were trying to get home to San Diego after visiting their father in Texas, when they were transferred to the wrong plane and flown to an airport 100 miles from where they were expected. This at least wasn't as bad as the first case, in which an 11-year-old girl trying to get from Los Angeles to Detroit "criss-crossed the country for 18 hours" after being accidentally flown to Orlando.

If you're holidaying with children in the US during August, this needn't worry you. Not unless you're checking the kids through as luggage, which is unlikely (although it's always a useful threat when they misbehave). But if your children are flying some where separately, you should take precautions. It's difficult to keep tabs on kids, God knows, but in this case they may be the only option.

Of course, adults too need to be careful when on holiday. The advice is: be sensible and, especially in a hot climate, plan your movements well in advance. You don't want to end up in Boston by mistake.

fmcnally@irish-times.ie