Pregnant with her fourth child, Russian lawyer Alena Tcherepanova, 41, traded the Siberian winter for the summer in São Paulo and immediately noticed the difference in her body. “As soon as I arrived, the swelling went down, my skin, my hair, my nails, everything improved. I no longer had to wear a lot of clothes like in the cold of Russia, something very unpleasant for a pregnant woman,” she said.
The child, baptized with the Greek name of Anfisa, was born on February 26, 2021 by the SUS (Unified Health System), in a birthing center in the Jardim Mirante neighborhood, on the outskirts of the city. Without mastering English or speaking Portuguese, Alena communicated with the team through a translation app on her cell phone.
Despite the language barrier, she says the experience at Casa Angela exceeded her expectations. “I was surrounded by affection, which is what a woman needs at that moment. It was very different from what happens in Russia, where obstetric…