For the first week after a Dutch birth, a trained maternity nurse comes to your house.
She checks the baby and the mother, helps with feeding, shows you how to bathe a newborn, keeps notes for the midwife, and — this is the part that surprises people — often does the laundry and makes lunch while she is there.
This is kraamzorg, and there is nothing quite like it in most countries.
Parents who move here late in a pregnancy tend to discover it only when someone asks which agency they have booked, by which point the good ones are full.
What you are entitled to
Kraamzorg sits in the basic health insurance package, so everyone with Dutch insurance has it.
The entitlement is a minimum of 24 hours and a maximum of 80, and in practice a straightforward birth is assessed at somewhere around 45 to 50.
The care normally runs through day 8 after the birth, and in some cases to day 10.
How many hours you are given depends on your circumstances — whether you spent time in hospital, whether you are breastfeeding, whether there were complications — and the assessment is made by the agency using a national protocol rather than by you choosing a number.
What it costs
There is a statutory contribution of €5.70 an hour in 2026.
On a typical package of around 49 hours, that comes to roughly €280 for the week.
Your deductible does not apply.
Kraamzorg is one of the few things exempted from the €385 eigen risico, so the hourly contribution is the whole of what you pay.
Two variations are worth knowing.
If you give birth in hospital and stay there for medical reasons, there is no contribution at all.
If you choose a birth centre or hospital stay without a medical need, you pay the same hourly rate plus the facility’s own charges, which are not small.
Some supplementary policies reimburse the hourly contribution, and a few cover extra hours beyond the assessed package.
That is worth checking before the annual switching window closes in December, not in month eight.
Book it early — earlier than feels sensible
Agencies take bookings from around 12 weeks and popular ones in Amsterdam fill months ahead, particularly for spring and summer due dates.
Registering early costs nothing and can be cancelled.
When you call, ask three things: whether the nurse will speak English, how many hours they expect to allocate, and what happens if your baby arrives while another client is in labour.
Every agency has a fallback arrangement, and the quality of that answer tells you a lot.
The midwife is a separate arrangement
Kraamzorg is not maternity care in the medical sense.
That belongs to your verloskundige, the midwife, who leads a normal pregnancy from start to finish and only involves an obstetrician if something calls for it.
You register with a midwifery practice yourself, usually as soon as you know you are pregnant, and most Amsterdam practices work with English-speaking clients.
The Dutch professional body for midwives keeps a directory if you want to check credentials, and the government’s pregnancy and birth pages set out how the two roles divide.
The midwife and the kraamverzorgende work as a pair in that first week.
The nurse is in the house daily and reports what she sees; the midwife visits and makes the clinical calls.
Register the birth within three days
Amsterdam requires the birth to be reported at a Stadsloket within three days.
It is usually the father, duomoeder or mother who goes, but if none of them can, anyone present at the birth may do it, as may a member of staff at the hospital where the child was born.
If you are not married and have not already acknowledged the child, sort that out before the birth rather than in the same week.
Recognition and the choice of surname are a separate appointment, and doing it in advance removes one errand from a week you will not want errands in.
What comes next
Once the kraamzorg week ends, care passes to the consultatiebureau, the free child health clinic that weighs, measures and vaccinates through the early years.
Childcare is the other thing to arrange far too early.
Amsterdam waiting lists commonly run past a year, so parents typically register during pregnancy — our childcare guide covers how the system and the allowance work, and the daycare directory lists what is available by neighborhood.
For the wider picture — insurance, leave, allowances and the appointments that come with a Dutch pregnancy — start with our guide to having a baby in Amsterdam.
Entitlement and contribution figures are those published by Zorginstituut Nederland for 2026.
