Maternity Leave – Know Your Rights

Some factors, like your position and salary, the amount of working hours per week or the size of your company will influence the time you can spend with your baby at home after giving birth. Before we get into details, let’s get the vocabulary right:

Maternity Leave is the time you get off from work in order to spend time with your newborn (or adopted) child. In most states, maternity leave is not granted for more than 6 weeks (8 weeks if you had a C-section or other complications). Other than in Germany, where the “Mutterschutz” starts 6 weeks before the expected due date, American Moms-to-be work almost until it’s time to hit the delivery room. That is – in many cases – because they do not have more than these 6 weeks off in total – and who would not want to spend that short amount of time with the newborn baby girl or boy rather than without?!

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The “other” planned parenthood: Wills, Trusts & Guardianship

Every parent will at one stage worry about how to protect their children in the case that something may happen to them. If you are a foreigner in the US this question may be even more pertinent as you and your kids may not share the same citizenship. How do you go about nominating a guardian? What is the legal procedure? Alison Arden Besunder can answer your questions. She is the founding attorney of Arden Besunder P.C., where she assists new and not-so-new parents with their estate planning needs.  Her firm assists clients in New York City, Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk Counties.  You can contact Ms Besunder through CityKinder or through her details listed below the article.

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What to expect AFTER you’re Expecting

Ever wondered how those first few days with your newborn would turn out or what it would be like to have a doula by your side during labour and birth.. Did you know that Doula care can reduce cesaerean deliveries? Stephanie Heintzeler, a certified bi-lingual doula, provides some excellent advice and insights on birth and beyond in the following two articles posted below. Stephanie works with women and their partners before, during and after birth to ease their experience and welcome their new baby. She is an experienced midwife licensed to practice in Germany and the USA. You can contact her through Citykinder by sending us an email or get in touch with her directly via her contact details listed below the articles.

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Doula makes a Difference

When I go to events or friends’ houses and tell people what I do, I often hear “A doula? What is that?” So I say “It’s like a midwife, just non-medical.” But that’s not all. As a doula I am the one who will guide you throughout pregnancy, birth and the postpartum phase.

Recently, I was involved in a very special birth. Lily and John (names changed) were expecting their first child and had taken my childbirth class. So it was great to know them well before they called me very early one morning. Lily told me that she was bleeding a little and having contractions. Her husband was very nervous, which made me think that he needed me even more than Lily.

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Dealing with home sickness | Heimweh?

Missing home?

Foreign students travelling from one culture to another in the hope for a better or different type of education will often find themselves in a seminar room being ‘prepared’ for what is to come by a benevolent Professor, who, having seen the exhilaration and suffering of newcomers trying to integrate throughout their study period, will try to bestow upon them the understanding of what it truly means to move to and experience a foreign country.

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