The Trinity Centre for Maternity Care Research recently presented findings and resources developed as part of the project 'SIGN - making maternity experiences positive for deaf women’ which was funded by Reach Deaf Services. This project was conducted in 2024 and involved one-to-one interviews, in Irish Sign Language (ISL), with deaf women who had given birth in Ireland since 2018. 

Previous studies on deaf women’s experiences of Irish maternity services had showed that deaf women experienced difficulties with both the method and quality of communication within the Irish maternity services. Estimates suggest that approximately 300 pregnant women use ISL to communicate in the maternity hospitals annually. 

Interpreter services are used by Ireland’s 19 maternity hospitals; however, none offer educational ISL resources. Despite the ISL Act being signed into law in Ireland in 2017, ISL interpretation is still lacking in some maternity care services. 

At the conference, the team presented findings from the SIGN project across the continuum of pregnancy, birth and postnatal care and showcased clips from new video resources which have been developed. These videos will be shared widely across all maternity services in Ireland, to the National Deaf Women Ireland (NDWI) and other services for deaf people. In addition, the audio and video content of the Women’s Health After Motherhood (WHAM) online programme was translated into ISL. 

Prof Deirdre Daly, Director of the Trinity Centre for Maternity Care Research, said:  

“The SIGN project’s findings will benefit deaf women accessing maternity services in Ireland in the future. With the adoption of the new knowledge created and mobilised through the different educational resources, services providers can implement new processes that better respect women maternity care needs and wishes. This means that deaf women who are pregnant and becoming mothers will be able to engage more fully with the maternity services.”