THE Northern Trust is seeking to launch a public consultation on the future of maternity services in the area.
The trust said maternity services were "fragile" and "unsustainable" adding that consultant obstetrics and midwifery resources were spread too thinly across Antrim Area Hospital and Causeway Hospital in Coleraine.
It also said they were "seeing a year-on-year decrease in birth numbers in the Causeway Coast and Glens area".
It wants to explore two alternative options, either moving all consultant-led births to Antrim with a freestanding midwifery-led unit in Causeway or moving all births to Antrim.
The trust said it will seek approval at a board meeting on Thursday to open a 14-week public consultation on options for the future of services.
"The current configuration of maternity services in the Northern trust is a fragile and vulnerable service model that is unsustainable," a spokesperson said.
"Available consultant obstetrics and midwifery resources are spread too thinly across the Antrim and Causeway sites and we are seeing a year-on-year decrease in birth numbers in the Causeway Coast and Glens area.
"We urgently need to provide a model for maternity services that addresses current challenges, including issues to do with staffing and recruitment and neonatal care.
"There are clinically deliverable options for providing a more sustainable and safe model and we have always stressed that we would try to make no permanent changes without full public consultation."
The Department of Health said it was being kept fully informed on "the fragility of the current configuration of services".
A spokesman said: "The department fully understands the sensitivities and anxieties of individuals and communities that potential changes to services can create, and therefore requires trusts to carry out extensive consultation prior to any planned change.
"Recommendations and proposals from the consultation will come to the department for assessment.
"Central criteria in this assessment will be how best to provide safe and sustainable care that meets the needs of the community.
"Any permanent changes to services will require ministerial/departmental approval."
The Northern trust aims to have a new-build £150m Women and Children's Unit on the Antrim Hospital site for maternity and paediatric services.
Subject to business case approval and funding availability, the trust hopes that this facility could be commissioned for service in 2027/28.
Meanwhile, a Nipsa ballot of health workers has returned a 92 per cent vote for strike action and 97 per cent vote for action short of strike action.
The union has said it will be looking to take action in early December following the vote over pay and staffing.
Padraig Mullholland from Nipsa said: "The industrial action in December will be hard-hitting but our members have no choice .. for too long members have held together a system that is in crisis so that our communities get a decent service".
