
Photo by Shai Pal
Photo by Shai Pal
Ilana Shemesh, an American-born nurse-midwife who immigrated to Israel in 1973, is a pioneer and leader in the struggle for childbirth reform in Israel. She got her nursing degree and midwifery license in 1982 from Sheinbron Nursing School of Ichilov Hospital in Tel-Aviv. She worked for eighteen years as a hospital midwife and introduced the concept of private midwifery in Israel. During that time she began to provide holistic prenatal care and attend homebirths as well. Since 2000 she only catches babies at home or in her two birthing clinics at her rural home between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Ilana has caught about 4500 births, of which over 500 were at home. She is the author of the only book in Hebrew about homebirth, A Guide to Homebirth in Israel.
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