When Rayna Tsuchiya was going through her first pregnancy in Japan 13 years ago, she was fearful of going to prenatal checkups.

Originally from Thailand, she’d heard horror stories about foreign women’s maternity experiences, like being scolded for not knowing Japanese, being rejected by hospitals due to the language barrier or having to decipher complex paperwork.

“I felt uneasy every time, just thinking about how I’d be treated,” she said.