London-based Tsippy Kraus helps women prepare for birth and overcome any associated trauma

N

ineteen years ago, I was living in Eretz Yisrael when I learned I would be having my first child. Children, that is — I was expecting twins. I’d done a childbirth course and was absolutely raring to go and have a natural birth.

But a more complicated reality intervened. I ended up having a C-section, and baruch Hashem, two healthy but tiny sons.

Two days after that shock, I was discharged from the hospital, but my babies had to stay in the Special Care Unit for four weeks. It was intense. The hospital gave me a small room so I could be near the babies in order to nurse them, which was where I recovered from my C-section, feeling so alone. I remember being in excruciating pain one night, unable to get out of bed, but as I wasn’t officially a patient, I couldn’t call a nurse. Although my husband and family came to visit, I still felt isolated, and very vulnerable.

Two years later, I gave birth again. I was given an epidural and had an okay birth, but I wasn’t satisfied. I felt that with better preparation and education, I could’ve known my rights versus hospital policies, and understood how to safely manage a VBAC.

It was time to educate myself, and I knew from Day One that I would share that knowledge with others. My first step was to contact Esther Marilus, author of Natural Childbirth, the Swiss Way. Esther came to London to teach me. I absorbed her method, and then expanded my knowledge, studying Hypnobirthing, Spinning Babies, Rebozo, Acupressure methods and taking mental health training courses. I then opened Birth Journeys, childbirth education courses for Jewish women.

I never became sold on any one birthing method as I don’t believe “one-size-fits-all.” My course, which I’ve been teaching for 15 years first in person and now online, incorporates all the techniques I have learned over the years. I teach people to know their options and make the decisions which are right for them — not to choose the doctor their mother used by default, not to be pressured by their friends’ choices, or by the hospital procedures.