Family Health Centre Neuhofstraße

The FamilienGesundheitsZentrum Neuhofstraße (FGZN, Family Health Centre Neuhofstraße) was founded in 1978 and, until 1988, was a work area of the autonomous Feministisches Frauengesundheitszentrum (FFGZ, Feminist Women’s Health Centre) in Frankfurt am Main. Together, the activists of the new women’s movement criticised the gynaecology that, from women’s point of view, was “male-dominated”¹ and “oriented towards conventional academic medicine”. Within this framework, the founders of the FGZN developed alternatives to the prevailing practice of pregnancy care and technologised childbirth. With the aim of self-determined obstetric care, they worked closely with midwives, organised outpatient and home births, set up a birth centre and developed a new training path for childbirth educators.

Since 1988 the women’s health centre has worked as a family centre: courses as well as support and counselling services on pregnancy and birth, on parenthood and other health topics are aimed at women, men and families.

History and founding

In 1978, a self-help group of pregnant women and mothers from the Frauenzentrum Eckenheimer Landstraße (Eckenheimer Landstraße Women’s Centre), together with other activists from the protest movement against Paragraph 218, the abortion law, founded the Feministisches Frauengesundheitszentrum Frankfurt. The work area of childbirth preparation and pregnancy counselling initially developed under the roof of the autonomous women’s health project. In 1984 the FFGZ moved into its own office and group rooms on Hamburger Allee.

Location of the FamilienGesundheitsZentrum in the rear building at Neuhofstraße 32 in Frankfurt am Main since 1988
Foto: Karin Kraus

In order to expand the services in the area of childbirth preparation and pregnancy counselling still further, the work area moved into larger premises in Frankfurt’s Nordend district in 1988 and initially bore the name Frauengesundheitszentrum Neuhofstraße (Neuhofstraße Women’s Health Centre). There the FGZN expanded its services and also included men and families in its counselling work. Additional premises on Günthersburgallee were added, and projects were also created in the Fechenheim, Bergen-Enkheim, Riederwald and Bonames districts. With the expansion of the counselling and course offerings in various districts and social spaces, the facilities of the FrauenGesundheitsZentrum in Frankfurt’s Nordend were renamed FamilienGesundheitsZentrum Neuhofstraße (FGZN) under the umbrella of the association FrauenGesundheitsZentrum e. V.²

A holistic understanding of pregnancy and birth

In the 1970s, the topic of pregnancy and birth was discussed in various groupings of the new women’s movement. First in the USA and then in West Germany, self-help groups of women were founded and a redesign of the practice of pregnancy and birth was demanded.

The activists of the FFGZ campaigned for holistic medicine and for a self-determined approach to one’s own body. A central theme in this was the criticism of the technologisation and pathologisation of pregnancy and birth. While home births attended by midwives were common practice in Germany until the middle of the 20th century, in the 1960s giving birth became a general benefit of the health insurance funds, so that births – even without any particular risk indication – mainly took place in hospitals, usually under male medical supervision and with a heavy use of technology and medication. This birth technology was regarded by women from the new women’s movement as a form of incapacitation and of alienation from their own bodies, from their own fertility and from the physiological process of giving birth.³

By referring back to the traditional knowledge of wise women, healers and midwives of the Middle Ages, women also wanted to reclaim the subjects of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding for themselves: “We wanted for ourselves the right to self-determined obstetric care, obstetric care that largely corresponds to the natural course of birth. We wanted obstetric care that takes the physical, psychological and social aspects of giving birth into account and recognises their interdependence.”⁴

The activists in the women’s health centres linked their criticism of obstetric care with the general criticism of the social position of women: “Bound up with having children are further functions that we are supposed to fulfil: we are supposed to bring up children, in particular the future housewives and mothers; we are supposed to hold a stable nuclear family together and we are supposed to perform housework unpaid (in the family as well as at the workplace). […] Family policy aims to enforce these interests and in doing so goes hand in hand with population policy. If we want to determine for ourselves what happens to our body and our sexuality, we also oppose being exploited in this way.”⁵

Within its holistic conception of women’s health care, the work area called for fundamental changes and developed new forms of childbirth preparation for pregnant women and expectant fathers. Following the definition of the World Health Organization (WHO), which in 1985 issued recommendations on appropriate birth technology under the slogan “Birth is not an illness”,⁶ expectant parents were able to inform themselves comprehensively in the courses about the physical and psychological processes during pregnancy, during birth and in the time afterwards with the newborn. The individual needs, fears and wishes of the women, the fathers and the unborn child were taken into account.⁷

The activists of the FFGZ and later of the FGZN established new forms and procedures both for childbirth preparation and for birth practices: in view of the clinical birth technology that was widespread at the time, they gave first priority to women’s right to experience the birth of their children in a manner appropriate to them and in a place chosen by themselves. They called for comprehensive changes to the prevailing birth practice, such as low-intervention clinical obstetric care, a reduction of painkillers during birth and more varied birth methods such as water births or upright birth positions. Fathers were integrated into their childbirth preparation courses and breastfeeding mothers were supported. Self-help groups and mothers’ groups emerged, as did cooperation arrangements with midwives, who accompanied outpatient and home births and advised women at home after the birth.⁸

These impulses had a lasting influence on clinical birth practice and changed the standards in hospitals. Rooming-in, family rooms and water births are today possible in most maternity wards in accordance with the wishes of women and LGBTQIA+ people and expectant parents.⁹

The childbirth preparation area of the FFGZ built up a nationwide network and, together with the Gesellschaft für Geburtsvorbereitung (GfG, Society for Childbirth Preparation), founded in 1980, developed a certified further training programme for educationalists, psychologists and midwives, which among others all the course leaders of the FFGZ completed.¹⁰

Services of the FFGZ and the FGZ Neuhofstraße (selection)

Location of the Feministisches Frauengesundheitszentrum at Hamburger Allee 45. From 1984 to 1988 the childbirth educators and pregnancy counsellors belonged to the team of the FFGZ.
Foto: Karin Kraus

From 1978 to 1988 the pregnancy and birth work area at the FFGZ offered counselling for pregnant women as well as courses on childbirth preparation, postnatal recovery exercises and baby massage.¹¹

From 1988 onwards, the work area of accompanying women around the time of birth was continuously expanded at the FGZN, for example through counselling services for involuntary childlessness and unwanted pregnancy. Fathers were included in the counselling from the outset.

Since the reform of abortion law in 1994, the association has been a recognised pregnancy conflict counselling centre.

Counselling and support with breastfeeding, with infant care and baby massage were added to the FGZN’s programme, as were courses on postnatal recovery and rediscovering oneself after the birth, or for parents with so-called crying babies.

In 1993 the staff of the FGZN, together with a group of midwives, opened a birth centre in Frankfurt-Ginnheim (today Böttgertraße 22).

In 1995 the counselling programme was extended to general areas of life and transitional situations such as women going through the menopause and traumatic experiences of stress.

From 1994 onwards, the FGZN also included socially disadvantaged parents, for example women and men with a migration history, in outreach, district-based counselling work. The model project Kinder- und Familienzentrum (KiFaZ) Fechenheim (Children’s and Family Centre Fechenheim), opened in 2007, was created in cooperation between the FGZN and the Sozialpädagogischer Verein zur familiengerechten Erziehung e. V. in Frankfurt. In 2016 the project received the Mixed up prize of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ) in the Dauerbrenner (long-runner) category.¹²¹³

From 2008 to 2013 the FamilienGesundheitsZentrum took part in the practice project Wertebildung in Familien (Values Education in Families) of the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (BMFSFJ) as the only model site in Hesse. Within this framework the FGZN offered, among other things, a mother-and-child holiday on the subject.¹⁴¹⁵¹⁶

In 2015 the FGZN supported pregnant women and mothers in the refugee accommodation in Frankfurt-Bonames.

The FamilienGesundheitsZentrum, which emerged from the new women’s movement and the Feministisches Frauengesundheitszentrum, celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2019.¹⁷

Cooperation between different specialist groups

The group of childbirth educators worked as one specialist team from 1978 to 1988 at the Frankfurt FFGZ, together with seven further specialist groups under one roof. The staff members had various qualifications: they were sociologists, doctors, educationalists, social workers, lawyers, social pedagogues, psychologists, psychoanalysts and students. This institutional structure of specialist groups was unique in the women’s health movement in Germany.¹⁸

With instruments such as peer consultation, intervision and supervision, the quality of the counsellors’ work at the FFGZ was assured, monitored and developed further.¹⁹²⁰

Budget and economic development

Entrance to the FamilienGesundheitsZentrum FGZN in the rear building at Günthersburgallee 14H, since the 1990s.
Foto: Karin Kraus

Unlike other services, fees could be charged for the childbirth preparation courses, since these were reimbursed by the health insurance funds as so-called pregnancy exercise classes. This possibility meant that counsellors and course leaders could receive fees for their services. All other work for the institution was carried out on a voluntary basis until 1985.

From 1985 to 1987 the FFGZ received a project grant of 150,000 DM from the Hessian Ministry of Social Affairs within the framework of the first red-green coalition at state level. These funds made it possible to pay for courses and individual counselling in the field of childbirth preparation, among other things on topics such as birth under water, men in childbirth preparation and at the birth, further training for student midwives, amniocentesis and AIDS in obstetric care.

From 1989 to 1996 both women’s health centres (FFGZ and FamilienGesundheitsZentrum Neuhofstraße) received funds from the state of Hesse and from the Women’s Department of the City of Frankfurt.²¹

Until 2015 the fees for the FGZN’s courses and counselling services were for the most part recognised as health insurance benefits. Since then, midwives have been able to bill services in childbirth preparation as a freelance area of work, whereas the services of the FamilienGesundheitsZentrum are often no longer funded by the statutory health insurance funds.²²

Founders and staff members

The founders, directors and staff members include Thea Vogel²³ and Marion Dominiak- Keller, Brigitte Peterka (managing director),²⁴ Iris Fiedler, Jacobe de La Tour and Doris Niebergall.²⁵²⁶

Awards

In 2010 Thea Vogel, co-founder, board member, counsellor and course leader of the FGZN, was honoured with the Ehrenplakette (plaque of honour) of the City of Frankfurt am Main for her many years of work on family and gender policy and for the further development of women’s health. Since 1983 Vogel has been a concept developer and trainer at the Gesellschaft für Geburtsvorbereitung, Familienbildung und Frauengesundheit Bundesverband e. V. (GfG).²⁷²⁸

In 2016 Gabriele Kemmler, childbirth educator and counsellor at the FGZN, received the 14th Frankfurt Olympe de Gouges Prize of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft sozialdemokratischer Frauen (ASF, Association of Social Democratic Women) Hessen-Süd and Frankfurt am Main for her outstanding work over many years in supporting women after the loss of a child and after traumatic birth experiences.²⁹³⁰

Publications

Boese-Bellach, Stefanie/Vogel, Thea (n. d.): Familienbegleitung von Anfang an … Grundlagen und Anregungen für Geburtsvorbereitung, Rückbildung-Neufindung und FABEL®-Kurse. Ed. by GfG – Gesellschaft für Geburtsvorbereitung– Familienbildung und Frauengesundheit – Bundesverband e. V. Berlin. Online at: https://publikationen.sexualaufklaerung.de/fileadmin/redakteur/publikationen/dokumente/13644000.pdf (accessed 18/08/2021).
Feministisches Frauengesundheitszentrum (ed.): 10 Jahre Feministisches Frauengesundheitszentrum Frankfurt 1978–1988: Dokumentation. Frankfurt/M. Online at: https://frankfurt.de/service-und-rathaus/verwaltung/aemter-und-institutionen/frauenreferat/frauengesundheit/frauengesundheitsbewegung (accessed 17/08/2021).
Jaedtke-Keller, Marion/Flügge, Sibylla et al. (eds.) (1979): Mutterfrust – Mutterlust. Handbuch von Frauen für Frauen über Schwangerschaft und Geburt. Frankfurt/M.: Frauenliteraturvertrieb.

External links

Website of the FamilienGesundheitsZentrum Neuhofstraße

Machine translation: This article was translated automatically from the German original.

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20
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22
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26
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28
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30
Wiemann, Caroline (2016): „Leere-Wiege-Kurs“. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, article of 12/11. Online at: https://www.faz.net/aktuell/rhein-main/trauerarbeit-im-leere-wiege-kurs-in-frankfurt-14502820.html (accessed 18/08/2021). ↩︎

Counselling centre, Family, Feminist organisation, Frankfurt, Social institution, Social work with girls, Women's health

Empfohlene Zitierweise

Karin Görner
: Family Health Centre Neuhofstraße. In: Equalpedia.

Online unter:

https://www.equalpedia.org/en/family-health-centre-neuhofstrasse/

(Zugriff am 26. September 2026).

Erstellt am: 22. September 2026
Verfasser*in: Karin Görner
Zuletzt bearbeitet am: 24. September 2026
Health, Institutions, Social affairs
Counselling centre, Family, Feminist organisation, Frankfurt, Social institution, Social work with girls, Women's health