Birth Around the World is a multi-country documentary series following the journey of becoming a mother, from fertility through postpartum recovery, across some of the most culturally rich and medically advanced nations in the world. Produced by Kristin, a certified birth and postpartum doula with over 10 years of experience, the series brings a cinematic, deeply human lens to one of the most universal yet profoundly personal experiences a woman can have.
Filming across Japan, France, Australia, South Korea, London, Barcelona, South Africa, and Dubai, the series documents not only how women give birth but how they are nurtured and restored afterward. Each country offers a distinct philosophy of care -- from Sweden's postpartum support infrastructure to Japan's tradition of returning home to recover, to the postpartum sitting periods practiced across Asia, to the communal care woven into birth culture across Africa and the Middle East. The series covers fertility, prenatal care, birthing options, postpartum nutrition, mental health, hormonal recovery, and the postpartum centers and birth retreats that exist across South Korea and Japan but remain largely unknown to Western audiences. Birth Around the World will bring these spaces to a global audience for the first time, exploring what the rest of the world understands about the postpartum period that the West has yet to embrace.
Filmed with cinematic beauty and intimate storytelling, each episode follows real women through their birth and postpartum journeys in a single country. The series emerges from an existing body of work—BirthNotes, a podcast featuring unfiltered birth stories from women across the US and internationally, and The Refining: A Mother's Journal, a published guided journal for mothers.
Maternal mortality, postpartum depression, and birth trauma are global crises. The solutions exist in the traditions and systems of care that other cultures have refined over centuries. Birth Around the World exists to make them visible.