Bring your own towels as none are provided!

In normal cases the Krankenkasse pays for you to stay six days - longer if there are medical reasons to do so. However you can leave as soon as you wish. Do inform the ward of your intentions since you will need a medical exam in order to be discharged. Unless you will have a midwife available to your home at a moment's notice, it is wise to stay in hospital until your milk comes in (36 hours).

During your stay the nurses will twice a day check up on you: temperature, blood pressure.... A doctor will exam your episiotomy and general healing process.

"Rooming in" is the norm where your baby sleeps in your room, but if you desire rest you may return the baby to the nursery. Let the nurses know when you wish to change your baby’s diaper for the first time; they will assist and show you how to weigh your baby and take his or her temperature during the first few days of life. Your baby will quickly drop weight in the first 48 hours since it takes in almost no (pre)milk during that time.

Your suitcase: towels, extra towels as you will be a bit messy, bath robe, house shoes, bras for breast feeding, milk pads, baby clothes for leaving the hospital, clothes to stroll the grounds, a great book to rest without boredom, chocolate. Is the baby car seat in the car?

Your doctor will inform you that if your water has broken or your contractions have become regular than it is time to go to the hospital. But what if neither has happened yet you believe the baby is coming? When in doubt: go. The worst that can happen is that you are asked to go home for a few hours.

The cervix opening will reach 10 cm for the baby to be born. Labor is the stretching process. (Note that as the due date approaches the cervix begins to open slightly, so public pools should be avoided due to infection risk). You may walk the halls of the ward for hours - many, many hours perhaps - before reaching 7 or 8 cm, at which point a delivery room will be made available to you.

Who is present? Your partner is there, one or two midwives will be there and a doctor will be stepping in and out to check your progress and the sensors attached to you. When you feel the need to push, or the midwife believes it is time, she will call the doctor or equally likely the doctor senses the timing too. The doctor and midwife assist each other to deliver the baby. There may also be a fireman observing; he is simply there for training.

Immediately after the baby is born the doctor will check that the baby’s lungs and other vital organs are functioning outside the womb. The midwife will be busy with you for the removal of the placenta, Mutterkuchen. And then you will hold your baby for the first time. While in the delivery room the doctor will perform the baby's first medical examination, Untersuchung 1 or U1, and the midwife will bathe and dress the baby. This differs to what may occur in the U.S. where the baby is taken away for bathing, et al. for a significant amount of time.

PAIN: What can any mother say? It hurts. Just like bumping your knee on the corner of a blunt metal object, the pain is excruciating and then quickly forgotten. Read up on the various anesthetic forms available, how they are given, so when the anesthetists wants to give an injection you are knowledgeable of the details. Doctors usually do not have a problem responding to questions but it is a problem when patients do not understand the answers. With nine months to prepare for the event there is little excuse not to be informed.

It is not the custom in Germany or Europe to circumcise boys. Nonetheless it is the custom in the U.S. You may be irritated by the reaction of German doctors or nurses: it is standard to say that it is only possible under full narcosis, which in turn is not recommended until the boy is at least eight months old. Clarify this matter with the hospital of your choice in advance and if they insist on making an issue of it, then bring in a Turkish paediatrician to perform the circumcision - there are several in Hamburg. This is cultural of Muslims and not an issue. Dr. Khaled Hinnaui, Tel. & Fax: (040) 220 69 52, will circumcise your child at home for DM 300. If you are Jewish, contact the Jewish Gemeinde at Tel. (040) 440 94 40 regarding a Mohel.

[Web Editor's Note: For an alternate discussion of Circumcision issues, see Jennifer M's article, To Circumcise or Leave It Be.]