‘The National Maternity Hospital (NMH) now allows parents to register a newborn baby with their sex unspecified [1] after its IT system was updated four years ago.
Mary Brosnan, director of midwifery and nursing at the NMH, said the parental decision to register a baby with their sex unspecified was “a rare occurrence” and that only three couples had chosen to do so in the past two years.
“It’s a cultural change, we try to make sure that people are respectful of everybody’s wishes, and try not to upset anybody by using the terms male or female if that’s what a couple don’t want to do,” she told The Sunday Times yesterday.
“But it’s certainly a challenge because I suppose we’re conditioned to welcoming somebody into the world as a boy or a girl and there’s a lot of discussion around the name.”’