Increase In Number Of Culchies Opting For A Bog Birth

THERE has been a 132% increase in the number of culchies opting for a natural bog birth, latest figures have revealed.

The National Registrar for Irish Births has detailed that in the last 12 months as many as 3,000 culchies have spurned the comfort of the Nation’s hospitals in favour of being closer to home and their heritage.

“It’s a big thing now with first time culchie mothers, they have a real aversion to big Dublin hospitals and their notions, and so they are turning to the bog birth,” explained midwife Anna Merchant.

Bog births are similar to home water births, however, in the case of a bog birth a pregnant mother will retreat into the wilds of Connemara and lay in the bog until labour begins. There are competing schools of thought as to the benefits of bog births, but much like water births, a bog birth is believed to be a more relaxed and comfortable birth.

As is well known, newborn culchie babies birthed directly into bogland can survive in dense peat for days as they are able to breath in peat with no adverse effects.

“I just want my child to be born into an environment I’m familiar with, and one he or she will grow to love,” one mother told WWN, as she wedged herself into a peat bog in an effort to get comfortable as her contractions began.