Back in 2017, I was participating in the development of the doula profession in Russia. At that time, my colleagues and I had just founded the APD (Association of Professional Doulas), and as one of the few people fluent in English, I translated everything I could into Russian. Among other things, I enjoyed participating in online Birth Summits, where international experts in gentle childbirth spoke live for several days in a row, and I simply listened and transcribed their w

Travelling elsewhere away from home to give birth is new for humanity. Hold on, you'd say. Women have been travelling outside their homes to hospitals for over a century now, sometimes even to another town or city, because there is no medical help available in their village. They have their baby and afterwards they go back home.

In Israel, women aren't allowed to get up for several hours after an epidural, even after giving birth, supposedly to prevent them from falling — that's the protocol," my client, with whom we are preparing for her second birth, told me.