First, let me explain to you why I wrote about birth experience in one city, rather than in the country. Switzerland is divided into 26 cantons, and they are all different: each with different laws and high standards, 4 languages, and rough terrain — it makes for example Zurich a completely different universe. My Polish point of view would see everything about Geneva birth-care as crazy luxurious, or even extravagant.
Overall, the way women are taken care of when giving birth is pretty good for a country that granted them voting rights only 44 years ago. There is something very special about pregnancy and birth care in Geneva and I think I know what that is. But there are a few private clinics in Geneva, some with maternity wards. No joke. One of the 2 lunches I was served in the maternity ward of HUG was a duck with saffron potatoes. I remember it for 3 reasons: 1 I was extremely hungry from the second after I gave birth for weeks to follow; 2 it was delicious; and 3 my mom did not believe hospital can serve saffron anything.
Bottled water is available without limits. Hence, women who decide to give birth in a more luxurious private hospital or clinic have to be aware that they will have travel in the ambulance to HUG the moment things turn risky. In Geneva women are entitled to 10 midwife visits. She comes to check up on the mum, to help with newborn care, with breastfeeding, answer every possible question, to weigh the baby, to make sure the mum is healing well.
On top of that, every mum is entitled to post natal physiotherapy perineum re-adaptation , and 2 consultations with a professional lactation consultant. If the above is not special than what makes giving birth in Geneva an outstanding experience? They are warm, confident, compassionate, friendly, and professional. They not only keep women and their babies safe, they also make the parents feel safe.
From the moment you turn up at the maternity ward you know you can count on them, you know they will help. They listen. They empathise.
