More than 40% of babies born in 2023 at Maternidade Alfredo da Costa in Lisbon were the children of foreign mothers. According to Renascença, there were 3,837 births at MAC last year, of which 1,647 (43%) were born to foreign mothers, the highest ever. Of these, 392 (10%) were the children of women from Lusophone African countries, and 695 (18% of the total) were born to women from Hindustani countries (India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan). This growth is due not only to the growing number of immigrants from this Asian region living in the historical center of Lisbon, but also to “maternity tourism”. Ana Fatela, the MAC’s clinical director, insists that the MAC has “no protocol” for flagging possible cases of “birth tourism,” especially because SNS computer records do not indicate how many follow-up visits a pregnant woman had during her pregnancy. The situation, according to Doctors President Carlos Cortes, must change.