The Carmans
Jeremy & Jacquelyn have lived in China since 2004. They have lived in the cities of Dongguan, Beijing, Qingdao and currently Tianjin.
They started havingababyinchina.com after the birth of their 2nd child in 2009, as they continued to see a need for information concerning having a baby in China. They continued to expand on their knowledge and experience with the birth of each of their 5 children. Their desire is to see a community of English-speaking people in China develop into a great resource for each other.
- In March of 2006 their first daughter was born at the famous Peking Union Medical College Hospital.
- In 2009 they gave birth to their second child at American-Sino Ob/Gyn Hospital.
- Their 3rd child was born in 2011 and Jeremy & Jacquelyn had the great experience of delivering the baby at Qingdao Women and Infant’s Hospital.
- For their 4th child they experienced a wonderful home-birth while they were back in the States in 2014.
- Number 5 was born at Tianjin United Family Hospital in 2018.
Each birthing experience has been completely different. And each experience has brought a wealth of knowledge that Jeremy & Jacquelyn hope to share with everyone through havingababyinchina.com.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact them at jeremy@havingababyinchina.com or on WeChat.
The Greenes
Nathan and Ruth have lived primarily in Qingdao, China since 2008. Their first friends were Jacquelyn and Jeremy, who were an immense support in the birth of their first baby at a local hospital in 2010.
After the birth of their second baby in 2012, Ruth began to support those around her in a similar fashion. In 2014 she began training as a birth doula through DONA International in order to be better equipped to help people in a variety of situations.
Nathan is a videographer, technical genius, and ardent supporter of Ruth’s passion to support families in pregnancy, birth, and parenthood. Together they now have four children.
- In 2010, their first was born at Qingdao Women and Infant’s Hospital (now closed). They used Bellaire Clinic to help with arranging appointments and translation.
- Their second child was born at Qingdao Women and Infant’s hospital in 2012.
- In 2015 their third was born at Qingdao United Family Hospital.
- In 2018 they experienced a spontaneous miscarriage followed by a D&C, also at Qingdao United Family Hospital.
- Their fourth baby, a high risk pregnancy, was a 39 week induced birth in Portland, Oregon in 2019 after traveling back to their home country during the third trimester.
Over the past several years Nathan and Ruth have been working with Jeremy and Jacquelyn to provide people across China with evidence based, quality information and support.
I had a baby and I did not see her after she was born, as she was taken into the hospital immediately after birth and I did not get to go to the place where I was told to go where I would find her.
hi sara its me ataur rahman babu my email babu1978117@gmail.com
Pls I need your help
How can we help?
If I have a home birth in China, will the baby still be forced to get the mandatory vaccines right away?
I think the bigger question is going to be about the feasibility of having a home birth in China in the first place. From what I understand, this is difficult to do as China doesn’t allow for this. That being said, it has been done. I recommend getting in touch with lioracc{at}yahoo dot com. She’s commented below and is active with this type of topic. She can probably also help you with the vaccine questions.
Hello my friends. My name is Peter and from Uganda. Am trying to get affordable IVF treatment in china preferably in Qingdao
Hi, our company has been listed on your website. Now we need to publish information of our new events. Could you please contact with me? Thank you.
Hello,
You have a great website! It is really easy to navigate and in just a couple of minutes one gets a feeling of being a lot more oriented about pregnancy and surrounding aspects!
We are about to publish an app in China that reads out ovulation and pregnancy tests and automatically enters expected date of delivery and ovulation dates in you calendar.
Aside from that we would like to integrate more useful information and tools for pregnant women and couples.
Maybe you have some good ideas or even have an interest in working together with us.
All the best and I am looking forward to hearing from you!
Best regards
Joachim
Hello Jeremy & Jacquelyn,
I am very glad that I have found your website in internet!!! You have good and very helpful information!
I was wondering if you have any Expat Maternity Hospital information from Nanjing.
My husband and I might go to Nanging for work and we are thinking to have a baby. Any information, experience would be very helpful.
Thank you very much,
Olatz
Dear Jeremy & Jacquelyn,
My name is Joyce and I work for ExpatFinder.com.
ExpatFinder.com is a free one stop website for people preparing to move or working and living overseas. We provide a myriad of services for expatriates and we have over 2,000 articles to help and support the people moving around the world and we are now creating an interview section to help the expats with real life experiences!
We quite enjoy your blog about living in China, it is very interesting and informative. Would it be possible to interview you to further share some of your tips and feature some of your first hand experience as an Expatand your interview will be published on our Expat Interview section as a guide for our expat readers. The questions are mainly about the day to day lifestyle of an expat. If it would be possible, could you also send some photographs that we can use?
Of course, if you accept, we can add a link to your blog or some of your website.
The questions are enclosed, feel free to respond freely. You can return the doc with your answers if you accept this invitation.
Thanks in advance and do let me know if you prefer other means to conduct this interview and we would be happy to accommodate your terms.
Best regards,
Joyce
My wife Lisa has helped a number of people over the years here in Chengdu to have natural deliveries. We recently have started providing the service as part of our business. Lisa and I have raised five children, four of which are now adults. I know you don’t necessarily advertise on your web but I was wondering if you knew how I might be able to get the word out to people who could use Lisa’s help here in Chengdu.
One of the biggest obstacles to a normal delivery is fear of the unknown. Lisa has been involved with the medical system here in Chengdu ever since SARS broke out. The US consulate needed help at that time and asked Lisa to help because of her many years of experience. As a result of this, she ended up working as a consulate nurse for several years giving her exposure to most of the hospitals in Chengdu and many in China. This experience is what she brings to the table when she provides childbirth training and doula services.
We have a number of very happy families that can vouch for the quality of her services and invite you to check us out
Sincerely,
David Newsham
David and Lisa
I am a natural birth advocate (had two home water births in Beijing). I also am the owner/moderator of Beijing Mamas yahoo group. I keep a list of “Birth Options” for the past few years. Slowly as the info has trickled in, this has expanded to becoming a document about all birth options in China. Occasionally someone contacts me from mothering.com “Finding your Tribe” (Asia forum) about home birth etc. in other Chinese cities. I’d love to include your info in the list. It goes out automatically to all new members of the Beijing Mamas Yahoo group (now just under 1,000 members). Also, I recommend joining the Chengdu Family Living Yahoo group. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chengdufamilyliving/
email me! lioracc{at}yahoo dot com
Hello Everyone,
What a wonderful service this website is, Jacquelyn and Jeremy! I will share it with others.
I am a Canadian registered nurse with an international maternal and child public health and midwifery background. My young family and I have recently moved from Canada to Xiamen, and my goal is to contribute to the health of perinatal women in China. I offer perinatal support to English speaking women here in Xiamen, do health teaching at maternity hospitals in China and also am a graduate student in medical anthropology with a focus on the health of women in the perinatal period. I am trying to build up a network of colleagues who are working to promote natural childbirth, breastfeeding, etc. here in China. Please be in touch if you can put me in touch with someone doing this type of work, or if you know of anyone in my area who is seeking support through their pregnancy, birth and postpartum.
Best wishes to everyone endeavoring to have the healthiest, most empowering birth possible in China!
Sandra Grant
Sandra, welcome! David and Lisa
I the owner/moderator of Beijing Mamas yahoo group, and a natural and home birth fan, and doula in training. I keep a list of “Birth Options” for the past few years. Slowly as the info has trickled in, this has expanded to becoming a document about all birth options in China. Occasionally someone contacts me from mothering.com “Finding your Tribe” (Asia forum) about home birth etc. in other Chinese cities. I’d love to include your info in the list. It goes out automatically to all new members of the Beijing Mamas Yahoo group and by email to those who contact me – I have written posts on several public forums about my home births in China.
email me! lioracc{at}yahoo dot com or call anytime! 010 5130 3931 or 139 1030 6022
Hi Sandra,
My husband and I are planning to move to Xiamen in March 2012 and I will be approximately 4 & 1/2 months pregnant. We are obviously going to need some assistance finding an English speaking practitioner to assist us during our stay and the name of a top “English” hospital to go to in the case that we decide to stay and have the baby in Xiamen. Would you be able to help us in finding those contacts? We are also from Canada, Montreal to be exact. You can reach me at cassbazos@gmail.com.
Thanks,
Cassandra.
I just want to show my appreciation for this great website! I am living in Xi’an and can’t travel back home to the states because my Chinese husband can’t get a tourist visa. So, here we are faced with birthing at the #4 military hospital (Xijing), and not sure of what to expect. I desperately want ro have a home birth, but seeing the impossibility of that, traveling to QD to Fuying might be another option. Thanks for all the helpful information, and if we birth in Xi’an, I’ll be sure to share it with you!
We are thrilled to know that you have found the site useful! Please do keep us updated and feel free to offer any suggestions.
I’d love it if you’d add a page on what to bring to China (Kunming) if you are expecting and plan to have the baby in China. Recommendations on go-to reference books to have, items to bring from US for baby, or for mom, etc.
Thanks for a great site.
Thanks for the suggestion! We’ve actually had that on the docket to do for some time. We’ll try to get that up asap.
Hi Jeremy and Jacquelyn!
I’m 9wk pregnant and looking for a place. I’ve been to American Sino last week for the 1st ultrasound. I like the place, but still doubtfull. Many friends told me about Amcare. Furthermore, I read that at Amcare they give your baby the first vaccines for free. I will go there and have a look but in the meanwhile I would like to ask you about your experience at American Sino. They told me they don’t do post-natal care so… what should I do? Should I bring my baby to another hsopital straight after the birth? Will the hospital help us with the registration of the newborn? I would like to use the direct billing since my insurance can pay for it but I’ve just found out that if you pay by insurance, the price is much higher… so actually I should pay part of the total cost by myself. I can’t understand why, exspecially because they told me differently on the phone. Was your experience good? Any advise? Thanks for your help!!
Hi, Alessia. Could you please write me on email life_is_good90@mail.ru about which hospital you have chosen for given baby in China. I am looking now for a good one , i am living in Dongguan. I hope to find some place where the doctor could speak English/
Thanks
Maryna
Dear Jeremy & Jacquelyn,
I hope you guys can help me with my problem, I’m looking for a place to give to my almost 6 months baby the immunizations shots here in Beijing.
I need to pay from my pocket because my insurance doesn’t cover it and at the United Family the prices are just extremely high I visited around 4 Chinese
hospitals and they all refuse to give to my baby the shots because his foreigner so if I just can do it in a private hospital could you guys give me and idea
about were can I go and some references about the prices.
Hoping to hear about you guys soon
Thanks a lot
Maricell
We had our first baby at Peking Union Medical Hospital. We chose there because we didn’t have insurance to pay for the nicer ones. However, we thought it was a pretty decent place to have a baby considering our limited funds.
We also did all of our baby’s immunizations there. They have a “foreign” section that is more expensive than the normal service, but it’s still relatively cheap and definitely cheaper than nicer hospitals in BJ.
tq for reply jeremy :).nice to know u
hai jeremy n jacquelyn,i want to ask you,which doctor handled your delivery at Qingdao Women and Infant’s Hospital?vaginal birth or c.section?in total how much u spend until u left the hospital?
i stay in rizhao 2,5 hour to qingdao,i plan to deliver in this hospital.tq
Yulia,
We primarily saw Dr. Zhang Shu Fen (There are more than 1 Dr. “Zhang”, so you have to specify with the full name.) and Dr. Wang Jing Yi. The birth was natural and we really feel they support natural birth.
We did the Plan B (套餐B). I can’t remember the exact cost, though.
Jeremy
Hi,
I and my husband just moved to Shanghai on work. I we are planning to have a baby soon. I am just looking out for information on the ‘citizenship of the child born in China’. Will the baby have a chinese citizenship or the citizenship of my country.
Hi, great to see your site and helpful tips. I’m pregnant with my second and well, not sure if we’ll have the baby in China or not. If we do, we’ll probably leaning towards a foreign hospital (but we’re 2 hours outside of Beijing!). Do you think we should start everything out in Beijing or can the initial tests be done at a local hospital and then those records shared with the other place. Thanks!
You can definitely start out at a local hospital and they will view the test results and medical history and take it under consideration. 2 things to consider, though:
1. Local hospitals are quite different than the foreign hospitals in Beijing in terms of culture and language.
2. The foreign hospitals in Beijing would probably want to redo many of the tests just to have their own results.
But both of those are not bad things, necessarily. We had a great experience better understanding the Chinese system when our first was born in a Chinese hospital. It wasn’t always easy, but it was a great learning experience. Doing the tests again is not a bad thing, either, since the local hospital’s prices are probably quite cheap.
sorry, I left a loose end!
sooooo, If someone wants the scanned document of the procedure of how to get a Birth Certificate for an Out Of Hospital birth (for Beijing), then Private message me and include your email address, and I can send it.
Liora
I have information about procedures for getting a Chinese birth certificate for babies born out at home or out of the hospital (Beijing only but I imagine a similar system exists for each city)
After all, there has to be some system for taxi births, etc.!
There is ONE office in all of Beijing. Baby, mother and whoever cut the cord must appear, and any witnesses are helpful (track down that taxi driver, etc), for signed and sworn documents. Helpful to have photos of you pregnant, bloodwork or other medical “proof”.
Then you get your Chinese birth certificate.
Before this plan was in place, hospitals could decide to provide one (or not, their discretion). For one of my children they provided a B.C. for me even though he was not born at home- but only because I still had the placenta intact (did not deliver in my home birth) and so they had proof I had given birth.
Didn’t you have information about obtaining a birth certificate for the baby born in China? I can’t find it now.
We used to have it on there, but we found that regulations change often from country to country. We were hoping for links from embassy with instructions, but we had a difficult time finding them, other than just a couple of countries. We have experience with the US procedures, let me know if you are from there and can help you.
What a great site, J&J. I wish I had thought of it!
I have had one hospital birth in Shanghai and two home births in Beijing. I am involved in La Leche League as a volunteer and run some informal community birth discussion groups.
Michel Odent is here now, finishing up his lectures and interviews. We see him off to the airport to visit Shanghai tomorrow. His listing is at City Weekend for his talk there.
http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/shanghai/events/86880/
Thanks for contributing to the site, lioralourie. Please feel free to give suggestions for improvement.
Peachy, you are in month 6, what are you so worried about?
week 37 you might want to have a Group B Strep test.
The Glucose tolerance tests…well, there’s controversy big time over those.
see Henci Goer’s article about this
http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/gdhgoer.html
And non Stress testing is begun if postdates at week 41 by many practitioners.
relax! Your body knows just what to do.
Are you eating well, getting exercise (walking, swimming?) and making sure your emotional terrain is positive? May I suggest some wonderful books?
Birthing From Within
Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth
Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering
Happy gestating.
Hi, guys! Thanks for this site. I try to browse all but since I live in a small city I can’t find enough info about it. Actually I’d like to ask if you have any idea that not all the necessary tests will be given. Like in my case, I asked for it and if I did not ask the doctor, then they will not give me anything. All ultrasound only. I’m on my 6th month and I don’t have the record, who is the doctor and what to do next. It really made me depressed at times. I can’t go back to our country coz I’m under contract until June with my husband who is also working with me-same school.My due is this June and still crazy about what’s next. Hope you can give me some insights. Please…
More power!
Peachy,
Thanks for the comment. For clarification, you are thinking that the hospital isn’t giving you enough tests, right?
Can you please tell us what city you are in? Maybe we can find some information for you.
Also, do you have someone that can advocate and translate for you?
Please feel free to respond here or send an email to us at jeremy @ havingababyinchina.com (remove the spaces) and we’d be happy to help you more.
Hi guys, so glad a friend referred me to this site…there’s such a big need for something like this for expats in this country! I delivered my son at Clifford Hospital in Guangzhou, and had a really good experience. http://www.clifford-hospital.org/ I said I’d definitely do it again, and since we’re expecting our third child next spring, it looks like I will!
Thanks, Tara, for the comment. Is there some way that we can contact you to get more information about Clifford? Please send me an email jeremy @ havingababyinchina.com (remove the spaces)
Hello, I need to take a pregnancy test here in China, but I know very little Chinese. You have the word for pregnancy test listed – can you tell me anything about how to read the results of a Chinese pregnancy test, or which brand is good to get? (One with English instructions would be great.) Thanks.
Nicole, you can go to any pharmacy and they will have pregnancy tests. Depending on how big the pharmacy is will depend on how many variety of pregnancy tests they will have. They price will range from something like RMB2 to RMB20. They are all the same and will give you the same results, you just have to decided how much money you want to spend. (I have tried them all) The cheapest is good (will be accurate) it just can be a little messy using. All it has in it is a tiny test strip. You will have to pee in a separate cup, dip the strip in to the line shown (the thicker end), hold for 10 sec, remove and wait about 5 min. The more expensive ones might have plastic around test strip. You can take a look at the different kinds they have a choose, some you might notice have English on them. If they don’t, don’t worry you can still figure it out (some have pictures). Good luck, hope everything goes well for you.
Hello Jeremy & Jacquelyn, I am wondering if your site could help me in any way to pursue a dream of mine and to offer something very special for a special family. I am mother of 3 young children: 7 and 5 (twins) and also a mature age student at Griffith University in Brisbane, Queensland studying for a B. Photography (with 10 years wedding and portrait experience) and I am looking for a willing mother to be a subject for a university assignment. I am travelling to Beijing in Sept this year with my university. During this time, i would like to photograph the magical and memorable moments of a birth in china. In return I am offering all images in high resolution and a slideshow with music for FREE. I recently photographed a birth in May this year for which was a beautiful and emotional experience. Now, i am looking into comparing and contrasting birth in Australia and China = that is if i get very lucky.
I myself had my twins photographed at birth – a beautiful record and I am hoping that I can capture this beautiful for someone else.
If your website can me in any way that would be fabulous the more exposure the better.
ps this website is a great idea and will be a wonderful support for those in need.
Warm regards,
Libby Best
libby you can email me at liora cc [at]Yahoodot com no spaces and I’ll hook you up with Beijing Mamas yahoo group (or you can visit the home page and join)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Beijing_Mamas
plenty of mamas wanting a birth recorded photographically !!
There is also a charity photo association I want to mention
http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/faq/
Thanks for the comment, Magnus. Please let us know some things you think would be beneficial to add to the site.
Our focus is pretty narrow. We want those who are having a baby or already have a baby in China to be able to quickly find relevant information related to hospitals, culture, pregnancy-related vocab or similar things.
We would love for you and your wife to contribute to our forums or by giving a hospital review from where you had your child. Feel free to contact us via this comment page, jeremy @ havingababy.com (remove the spaces), our on our forums.
Thanks,
Jeremy @ Having a Baby in China
This is a great site! Not much here so far… but great idea! We had a baby in China back in 2007. My wife is a local though. Quite an experience! We wrote about it on our site…
http://www.mandmx.com/2007/07/08/51/
if you are interested!