Your English guide to birth in Germany
Your Hebamme
Midwifery care in Germany: the essentials, distilled.
What is a Hebamme?
A midwife (Hebamme) attends the birth: a doctor may not conduct one without calling a midwife in. Midwife care runs across pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum (Wochenbett), and statutory health insurance covers all of it.
Midwifery here is more than a set of checks. Alongside the blood pressure and the heartbeat, a midwife asks how you are sleeping, how you are eating, how the birth ahead is sitting with you. They come to know you over months, and that is what lets them notice when something has changed.
The types of Hebamme
| Type | What they cover |
|---|---|
| Vorsorgehebamme | Prenatal check-ups. Does not attend the birth |
| Nachsorgehebamme | Home visits after the birth, through the first 12 weeks |
| Stationshebamme | Employed by a hospital, works the labour ward rota |
| Beleghebamme | Freelance, with a contract (Belegvertrag) at one hospital. Some work that hospital’s rota; others you book personally for one-to-one care on call |
| Begleithebamme | A loose term for continuity from pregnancy into birth. Without a Belegvertrag they cannot take clinical charge of a hospital birth, so the ward midwife does and yours is there as support |
| Hausgeburtshebamme | Home births, usually with prenatal and postpartum care as one package |
| Geburtshaushebamme | Birth house care, generally as a small team practice |
| Familienhebamme | Extra qualification, extended support to the child’s first birthday. Arranged through Frühe Hilfen, not the Krankenkasse |
What your Krankenkasse pays for
- All prenatal check-ups (Vorsorge)
- Birth preparation class (Geburtsvorbereitungskurs)
- Attendance at your birth
- Daily home visits for 10 days postpartum
- Up to 16 further visits through the first 12 weeks
- Further support with feeding and weaning beyond that window, on the terms your Krankenkasse sets
- Postnatal recovery course (Rückbildungskurs)
Visit counts reflect the GKV-Spitzenverband Hebammenvergütungsvereinbarung, verified April 2026. Feeding support is counted differently by different Krankenkassen. Ask yours what you are entitled to, in writing.
Private insurance (PKV): coverage varies by policy. Confirm in writing that midwife care and any on-call fee (Rufbereitschaftspauschale) are reimbursed before you contract a midwife.
Your midwife and your doula
The two roles do not compete, and a doula never replaces a midwife. Your midwife holds the clinical thread: your healing, the baby’s weight, the feeding questions that need a trained eye. Those visits are usually short, and they are the part of your care that has to be a midwife.
The hours around them are where I work. Mothering the mother is the whole of the job: a meal cooked, the washing done, the baby held so you can sleep or shower, older children looked after if there are any at home, and someone to talk the birth through with as many times as you want to. If German is the barrier, I can help you prepare for a visit and go back over what was said afterwards.
Between us it is one piece of care. Your midwife looks after your recovery and your baby’s; I look after the hours in between.
How to find yours
- Confirm your pregnancy. Get your Mutterpass.
- Search Ammely and Hebammensuche nationwide, plus any regional list (e.g. Hebammenliste Berlin).
- Write to a good number of them, and write early. In many areas midwives are booked months ahead, so quiet replies are a question of capacity.
- Ask your gynaecologist and your Krankenkasse who they know.
- Register at your chosen hospital by weeks 30 to 34.
- Keep a simple list of who you wrote to and when. It saves repeating yourself later.
What to ask when you first make contact
- What care do you offer (prenatal, birth, postpartum, all)?
- Do you have availability around my due date?
- How many other families are you expecting around then?
- Do you speak any English?
- How do I reach you outside of appointments?
- Is there an on-call fee?
- What does your postpartum care look like?
If the search stalls
Your Krankenkasse's midwife matching service (Hebammenvermittlung) and your regional Hebammenzentrale exist for exactly this, and many keep a central waiting list ordered by due date. The list of who you have already contacted is what helps them help you. Plenty of families in Germany end up making these calls.
I am not a midwife and do not replace one. What I can do is stay with you through the search, keep it organised, and carry the practical and emotional side of the weeks either way.
Your rights
None of this has to be argued for. It is simply how the system is set up.
- Statutory right to midwifery care (§24d, §24f SGB V)
- No doctor's referral needed
- Your choice of midwife, and you may change if the fit is not right
- Informed consent before anything is done
- Explanations you can genuinely understand (§630e BGB). Note that interpreting itself is not usually paid for by statutory insurance