RUSSIAN mum-to-be Svetlana Bakharev has flown to Oxford on an £8,000 trip so her baby can be born at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

The Moscow lawyer is the first in a long line of pregnant Russian women ready to hop on a plane to Oxford because they are terrified of their country's own hospitals.

Mrs Bakharev and husband Dimitri heard about the John Radcliffe Hospital from senior midwife Ethel Burns who runs its delivery unit and often lectures in St Petersburg.

Oxford's pioneering methods of childbirth convinced Mrs Bakharev to book in as a private patient for up to £2,500 and have Ms Burns assist the birth of her first child due on May 10.

The couple, both corporate tax lawyers, are now renting a house in Oxford - and a car in case they need to dash to the hospital - and have visited the hospital.

"We want to do the best for our baby," said Mrs Bakharev, 30.

"I have been in a Russian hospital three times and I saw pregnant women and how they gave birth - it was terrible and made me afraid."

She said women were offered little choice of painkilling and childbirth methods, and that enemas were common practice. The John Radcliffe Hospital's delivery suite offers women massages and aromatherapy to help reduce the pain and the birth in a special pool.

"In Moscow, there are no water births or anything like that," said the mother-to-be.

Mr Bakharev, 27, said: "We heard about Ethel Burns last year because she is quite well-known in St Petersburg. We agree with the methods she spoke about and decided to have our baby delivered at the hospital where she works. Money is not a problem."

"We don't trust Russian medicine because there are many dangerous and terrible things in Russian hospitals."

Ms Burns, who has agreed to help deliver the couple's baby, is on special leave from the hospital and is not allowed to speak to the media.

Childbirth writer Sheila Kitzinger, of High Street, Standlake near Witney, is helping to look after Mr and Mrs Bakharev.

She said: "I know that other Russian women are queuing up to give birth here.

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