Finding support for expats when pregnant abroad

Expat life impacts on every aspect of our lives and no experience can be more personal and pertinent in this respect than pregnancy and child-birth. Arriving in a new location while pregnant can be challenging as I know. We moved to live on the island of Madeira when I was three months pregnant with my second child eleven years ago.

Knowing no-one and not having the normal support systems of parents, relatives and best friends back home, not speaking the local language or understanding the medical systems can add to the stress of the adjustment process. But if you know what questions to ask, and are able to calmly identify what kind of support you want and keep an open mind then there is every chance you will find the care you need. In this interview I talk to Karen Wilmot - The Virtual Midwife. The conversation provides invaluable tips and advice.

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Karen has been involved in the arena of women's health for many years. Working in the Middle East, Karen came to feel that pregnancy and childbirth were not being treated with the respect and honour they deserved - becoming too procedural and technocratic.

Karen wanted to support women at a deeper level and so eight years ago she started to support women her way and a year ago opened a centre for pregnant women in Oman. This is a delightful conversation about the experience of pregnancy and childbirth.

We talk about:

• The challenges women and their partners face when managing their pregnancy and child birth as an expat.
• What Karen means by supporting pregnancy and childbirth from a holistic perspective.
• Karen's take on FEAR and her suggestions on how to manage those fearful thoughts and feelings.
• What questions to ask and when.
• We finish with Karen's five tips for creating a calming birth environment.

We hope you enjoy this interview and please do share with your friends.

To learn more about Karen and her online programme you can go to www.thevirtualmidwife.com where you can also connect with Karen.

At the end of the podcast I talk about two books Knocked Up Abroad: Stories of pregnancy, birth and raising a family in a foreign country and Knocked Up Abroad Again: Baby bumps, twists and turns around the globe by Lisa Ferland. You can find them on Amazon and listen to my interview with Lisa HERE

For clarity, these are not affiliate links. These are resources that I believe may be helpful to you. Please conduct your own research to ensure you are making an informed decision before buying.