I’ve gotten some emails asking about the prenatal and postnatal care and the birth process in Germany. I’ve decided the best thing to do is make a post answering all the questions, so if you have any questions about the procedures, ask in the comments, and I’ll do my best to answer them in an upcoming post. Also, if you have written up a birth story for your German birth, give me the address and I will add a link to it in the upcoming post (I know Blythe and Maria have birth story posts).
Questions I’ve been asked so far:
- When and how do you choose a Hebamme?
- Has your Hebamme been helpful?
- Are there lactation consultants in Germany?
- Why do you need to take a passport and a marriage certificate to the clinic/hospital?
- What is a Mutterpass?
So what else would you like to know about? If I can’t answer your question, I’m sure that my readers can!
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Sorry to write anonmously, I’m not ready to tell that we are trying for a baby. If this is too personal don’t worry but I’d like to know how taxes and income change with a baby… Elterngeld and such. My dh is German and works and I am not German and don’t work so I think we’d be in the same boat. Thanx!
anon II here,
i just spent a fortune on prenatal vitamins this morning and they don’t have nearly the amount of folic acid in them recommended by the USDA. what did you use and where did you get them?
thanks
I am happy to share as well! Here is a link to those posts relevent to my German pregnancy and labor experience…keeping in mind that I moved to Germany almost seven months pregnant!
http://mariaandkevin.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20German%20pregnancy%20and%20labor%20experience
I’m sorry. For some reason, I think the link did not post properly. If you go to my blog and click on the “tag” titled “The German pregnancy and Labor Experience” there are two pages or more of posts!
My posts are labeled “Having a Baby in Germany.” Great idea, Christina!
I will get to work on the post hopefully sometime this week. And since Anon II’s question can be answered quickly, I used Femibion, available at the Apotheke. I’ll write more about that in the upcoming post.
Keep the questions coming!
It’s been a looong time since I had my last baby and things have changed a lot since then but I think it would be a good idea to give some information on what pain relief is available here. Not all hospitals are the same. The hospital I chose both times was very convenient for us since it’s right across from the in-law’s apartment, but they DON’T do epidurals or give any other kind of pain medication except some homeopathic stuff. I knew that beforehand and was OK with it.
I’ve heard that only normal, regular names that clearly specificy the gender of the baby are acceptable in Germany.
since I’m American, and my (in planning) baby will therefore be, too, can I name it whatever I want and register it with the consulate first, thus forcing the German authorities to accept any name? I mean, if it were born in the U.S. I could name it whatever I wanted and then move over here and they’d have to accept it.
@christina: Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll definitely put something in about medications!
@anon: I’m going to write up the procedure, but I don’t think your idea will work. You need to submit the German birth certificate to register the birth from abroad with the US Consulate, so the baby already needs to be named. But as far as I know, if you can show that the name you’ve picked would work as a name in your home country, it’ll be fine here. I guess it just depends on how unusual the name you want to use is. I’ll see if I can find out more about how that works.