Madam, - I am somewhat perplexed and perturbed by the spate of New Year's Day babies in recent years whose delivery has been timed at one second past midnight.
It raises certain questions - such as, when is a baby considered to be born? Is it when the baby's head emerges, when the entire body has been delivered, or when the umbilical cord has been cut?
This year saw not one, but two babies, both in Munster, born at one second past midnight on New Year's Day.
I find the suggestion that Kerry was considered to have pipped Cork, because the Kerry birth was natural as opposed to the Cork birth by Caesarean section, to be somewhat obscene. It is not acceptable to classify one birth as superior to another.
Were both hospitals operating (no pun intended) on Munster Time or Greenwich Mean Time? Whichever, it must be very reassuring for the HSE, as it staggers from crisis to crisis, to know that the clocks in Munster hospitals are working to such a degree of accuracy. - Yours, etc,
BERNARD McDONNELL, Plunket College, Whitehall, Dublin 9.