Mayotte: home to France's biggest maternity hospital It may be a tiny island 5,000 miles from the capital, but Mayotte is home to France's largest maternity hospital, in part due to a phenomenon of pregnant women arriving by boat from nearby islands to give birth on French soil. Around 70 percent of the 10,000 babies born every year in the maternity hospital in Mamoudzou are born to illegal migrants, mainly from the nearby Comoran islands of Anjouan, Moheli and Grande Comore, according to official statistics. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES