Terms and Conditions

Effective Date: August 11, 2024
Last Updated: August 2, 2026
Applies to: United States and Canada

Schedule B is the controlling section for users in Canada and modifies the arbitration, governing law, and liability provisions.

1. Agreement

These Terms and Conditions ("Terms") are a legal agreement between you and BirthBridge, LLC, a Texas limited liability company ("BirthBridge," "we," "our," "us"), with its principal place of business at Texas, United States.

They govern your use of mybirthbridge.com, our applications, and the services we provide (together, the "Platform").

By creating an account or using the Platform, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Platform.

Please read Section 20 (Dispute Resolution) carefully. For users in the United States, it requires most disputes to be resolved by individual arbitration and waives the right to a jury trial and to participate in a class action. Section 20 does not apply to users in Canada. See Schedule B.

2. Definitions

• Family or Client: a person or household using the Platform to find, contact, or book support.
• Professional or Provider: a birth or postpartum professional who lists services on the Platform. This includes doulas, midwives, lactation consultants, childbirth educators, postpartum support professionals, and similar practitioners.
• User: a Family or a Professional.
• Services: the support a Professional provides to a Family.
• Platform: everything BirthBridge operates, as described in Section 1.
• Content: anything a User submits, including profiles, photos, articles, messages, and reviews.
• Referral Programs: the programs described in Section 22 under which a User or an affiliate may receive a reward for introducing a new User to the Platform.

3. What BirthBridge is, and what it is not

BirthBridge is a marketplace and communication platform. We help Families find Professionals and give both sides tools to communicate, schedule, and pay.

We are not a party to the arrangement between a Family and a Professional. When you book, the contract for the Services is between you and the Professional. We are not your agent, your employer, or your care provider.

BirthBridge does not provide health care, medical advice, or clinical services. Nothing on the Platform is medical advice. If you have a medical concern, contact your health care provider. In an emergency, call 911 in the United States or Canada, or your local emergency number.

Professionals are independent. Professionals set their own rates, availability, methods, cancellation terms, and scope of practice. They are independent businesses, not employees, partners, joint venturers, or agents of BirthBridge, and nothing in these Terms creates an employment or agency relationship. Professionals are responsible for their own taxes, insurance, licensing, and compliance.

How results are ordered, and what money does and does not buy. Search results are ordered automatically. The main factors are location, the type of support you asked for, availability, how complete a profile is, and how well a listing matches your search.

Our commitments about ordering:

• We do not sell a specific position in search results.
• Any placement that is paid for will be labelled as an advertisement, in plain words, wherever it appears. If you do not see that label, the placement was not bought.
• A Professional cannot pay to be removed from, or to outrank, a specific competitor.

Some Platform features are only available on a paid subscription, and a Professional who uses more of those features may have a more complete listing, which can affect ordering. That is a difference in what a Professional has built, not a purchase of preferential ranking.

We are not paid for referring you to a particular Professional. We do not receive a fee, a commission, or anything else of value from a Professional in exchange for sending you to them specifically. See Section 22 for the Referral Programs, which reward introductions to the Platform, not to any particular Professional.

4. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of majority where you live, whichever is greater, and able to enter a binding contract.

The age of majority is 19 in British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon.

If you are pregnant or parenting and under that age. You are not the exception, and we would rather say this plainly than leave you to work it out from a rule written for someone else. The age requirement exists because an account involves a contract, and a contract needs someone who can legally enter one. It is not a judgement about who deserves support.

A parent, guardian, or another trusted adult can hold the account and arrange care with you. They enter into these Terms, and you get the support. If you would rather not involve a family member, an adult you trust — a caseworker, a school nurse, a community health worker, a support worker — can do it, and you can contact us at hello@mybirthbridge.com and we will help you find a way through.

If we learn that an account was created by someone under the contracting age, we will contact them first, and we will look for a workable answer before we restrict anything. Section 10 of our Privacy Policy explains what happens to their information.

Professionals must additionally:

• Hold the qualifications, certifications, registrations, or licences they claim, and keep them current.
• Be authorized to practise in every jurisdiction where they offer Services.
• Comply with all rules of any regulatory college or certifying body they belong to, including that body's advertising and professional conduct standards.
• Not use a protected professional title unless entitled to. In most Canadian provinces and many US states, titles such as "midwife," "nurse," and "physician" are legally protected. Using one without authorization is an offence, and we will remove listings that do so.

If we are unable to verify your eligibility, we may suspend or remove your account.

Where we offer the Platform. BirthBridge is offered in the United States and Canada only. For these purposes the United States includes Puerto Rico and the other US territories, so if you are in Puerto Rico you are welcome here and these Terms apply to you the same way they apply to a user in any state. We do not offer the Platform to users in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, and we do not direct our services there. If you are in one of those regions, do not create an account.

5. Accounts

You must give accurate, current, and complete information when you register, and keep it up to date.

You are responsible for keeping your credentials confidential and for everything that happens under your account. Tell us immediately at hello@mybirthbridge.com if you believe your account has been accessed without your permission.

One account per person or business. Do not share, sell, or transfer your account.

6. Using the Platform, Families

Searching and booking. You may search listings and contact or book Professionals. When you book, you agree to that Professional's own terms, including their rates, cancellation policy, and refund policy. Read them before booking.

What we check, and what we do not. Please read this carefully, because it is the thing families most often assume wrongly.

What a Professional tells us about themselves is what you see. Profiles, credentials, training, insurance status, and service descriptions are entered by the Professional. We require them to be accurate, and we act when we learn they are not, but a listing is a self-description, not a finding by us.

We may ask a Professional for documentation of identity, certification, licence, registration, or insurance, and we may check a credential directly with the body that issued it. We do not do this for every Professional, and we do not check every credential.

We do not:

• Run criminal background checks or any other consumer report. See Section 7.
• Verify that insurance is currently in force.
• Assess anyone's competence, safety, or clinical judgement.
• Endorse, recommend, or vouch for any Professional.

No badge, label, ranking, or wording anywhere on the Platform should be read as meaning we have screened a Professional for your safety. Where we describe something as checked, we mean only the specific thing named, at the time it was checked. A check is not an endorsement, and it is not a guarantee of quality, safety, or fitness for your situation.

So please check for yourself. Confirm a licence or registration directly with the regulator or certifying body, ask for references, interview more than one Professional, and ask to see current proof of insurance before you book. For registered midwives in Canada, Schedule B6 tells you where the public register is.

Payment. You agree to pay the amounts shown at booking. Prices displayed include all mandatory fees and, where applicable, taxes, so the amount you see is the amount you pay.

Reviews. After receiving Services you may leave a review. See Section 11.

7. Using the Platform, Professionals

Your listing. You are responsible for the accuracy of everything on your profile, including credentials, training, insurance status, scope of practice, service descriptions, availability, and pricing. Do not overstate qualifications, imply a regulatory status you do not hold, or make claims about health outcomes you cannot support.

Verification. We may ask you for documentation of identity, certifications, licences, registration, or insurance at any time, and we may verify directly with the issuing body. We may suspend, restrict, or remove a listing if credentials cannot be verified, appear inaccurate, have lapsed, or if the information you provided is misleading.

Background checks. We do not currently obtain criminal background checks or other consumer reports on Professionals, and no profile should be read as indicating that we have. If we begin to, we will first give you the standalone written disclosure and obtain the written authorization that the US Fair Credit Reporting Act requires, or the equivalent consent required in your province, and we will follow the pre-adverse action and adverse action procedures that apply before acting on a report.

Delivering Services. You are responsible for delivering the Services you agree to, communicating promptly, and honouring your own cancellation and refund policy.

Insurance. You must maintain professional liability insurance and general liability insurance appropriate to the Services you offer, at coverage levels consistent with the standards of your profession, for as long as your listing is active. You must give us evidence of coverage on request and tell us within 10 days if coverage lapses. BirthBridge does not provide, arrange, or facilitate insurance for anyone.

Scope of practice. Provide only Services you are qualified and authorized to provide. Do not diagnose, treat, prescribe, or perform any act restricted to a regulated health profession unless you are a member of that profession and authorized to perform it.

Fees and payouts. Payouts are processed by our payment processor. You are responsible for your own taxes, including registering for and remitting any sales tax that applies to your Services.

Platform fees. Our fees are disclosed before you list. We may change them on at least 30 days' notice to you. If you do not accept a change, your remedy is to stop listing and close your account before the change takes effect.

If you bill Medicaid, Medicare, or any other government health program. A growing number of state Medicaid programs reimburse doula and related support services. Fees and referral arrangements involving services paid for by a government health program are regulated differently from ordinary commercial fees, in both the United States and Canada.

• Tell us at hello@mybirthbridge.com if you bill, or intend to bill, Medicaid, Medicare, TRICARE, a state or provincial health plan, or any other government health program for services you offer through the Platform. We need to know in order to charge you correctly.
• We will bill you a flat, fixed fee for the Platform, agreed in advance, rather than a percentage of what you are paid for those services. A flat fee that does not vary with the volume or value of the work you receive is the structure we use for this business.
• We are not paid to send you clients. No part of what you pay us is a payment for a referral, and we do not pay anyone for referring a client to you.
• You remain responsible for your own compliance with the rules of any program you bill, including its rules on referrals, marketing, and fee splitting, and for any provider agreement you have signed with that program.

Nothing in this paragraph is legal advice about your own arrangements. If you bill a government health program, get advice from a lawyer who practises health care regulatory law in your jurisdiction.

Referral and affiliate rewards. If you take part in a Referral Program, Section 22 applies to you in addition to this Section.

8. Subscriptions and automatic renewal

Some Professional features are offered on a subscription.

• What you are agreeing to. Before you subscribe we show you the price, the billing period, the renewal date, and how to cancel. You must affirmatively agree to those terms.
• Automatic renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period at the then-current price, and your payment method is charged, until you cancel.
• Confirmation. After you subscribe we send you a confirmation setting out the terms and how to cancel, which you can keep.
• Price changes. We give at least 30 days' notice before a renewal at a higher price, and you may cancel before it takes effect.
• How to cancel. Cancel at any time in your account settings, in the same place and in no more steps than it took to subscribe. You may also email hello@mybirthbridge.com. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period.
• Refunds. Unless the law requires otherwise, subscription fees already charged are not refunded. Your access continues until the end of the paid period.
• Free trials. If a subscription begins with a free trial, we tell you when the trial ends and what you will be charged, and you can cancel during the trial at no cost. We send you a reminder before a free trial converts to a paid subscription, with the amount, the date, and a direct link to cancel.
• Renewal reminders. For any subscription with a term longer than one month, we send a reminder before each renewal setting out the renewal date, the amount, and how to cancel. Where the law of your state or province requires a reminder on a particular schedule or in a particular form, we follow that law.

9. Fees, payments, and taxes

Payment processing. Payments are handled by third-party processors. By using them you agree to their terms. We do not store full payment card numbers.

All-in pricing. We show the total price, including mandatory fees, before you commit. We do not add unavoidable charges after the price is displayed.

Taxes. Prices are shown inclusive of applicable taxes where we are required to collect them. Professionals are responsible for their own tax obligations on the Services they provide.

Currency. Amounts are charged in the currency shown at checkout. Your bank may apply conversion or foreign transaction fees, which are outside our control.

Refunds and cancellations between Users. Cancellation and refund policies for Services are set by each Professional and are shown on their listing. Disputes about Services, cancellations, or refunds are between the Family and the Professional. We may, at our discretion, help the parties communicate, but we are not the decision maker and we do not guarantee an outcome. This does not limit any right you have under consumer protection law. See Schedule B.

Chargebacks. If you dispute a charge with your bank rather than raising it with us or the Professional first, we may suspend your account until the dispute is resolved. We will always try to resolve a problem directly if you contact us first.

10. Messaging and communications

How messaging works. Messages sent through the Platform are encrypted at rest using per-user key pairs and are protected in transit. BirthBridge holds the technical means to access message content and does so in limited circumstances: to deliver notifications, to investigate a report of abuse, fraud, or a Terms violation, to respond to a support request you make, and where legally required.

We do not offer end-to-end encryption. Do not treat the Platform as a secure clinical record system. See our Health Information Policy for guidance on sharing information about health.

Families contact first. Professionals may not send unsolicited messages to Families. A Professional may respond to a Family who contacts them, and may follow up about an active or recent booking. Cold outreach to Families through the Platform is prohibited and may result in suspension.

Commercial messages. We send service messages related to your account and bookings. We send marketing messages only where you have agreed to receive them, and you can unsubscribe at any time. For Canadian recipients, see Schedule B.

Text messages and calls. If you give us a mobile number, we may send you service texts about your account and bookings, such as a booking confirmation or a reminder. We will send marketing texts or make marketing calls only if you have separately agreed to receive them, by an opt-in that is not bundled with your acceptance of these Terms. Message and data rates may apply, and message frequency varies.

You can stop texts at any time by replying STOP to any message, or by contacting hello@mybirthbridge.com, and we will act on that request promptly and in any event within 10 business days. Reply HELP for help. Stopping marketing texts does not stop essential service messages about a booking you have made, and it does not close your account.

Off-platform contact. Keep communications about Services on the Platform. If you move off-platform you lose the protections the Platform provides, including message records that can help resolve a dispute, and we have no visibility into what happened.

Circumvention. Do not use the Platform to make contact and then arrange or take payment for those Services outside it in order to avoid our fees. If you do, we may suspend or close your account and, where we have a contractual right to them, recover the fees that would have been payable.

11. Reviews and Content

Reviews must be genuine. Only leave a review if you actually received the Services. Reviews must be truthful and based on your own experience.

What we check about a review. A review is written by an account holder and published as submitted. We do not currently confirm each review against a completed booking record before it is published, and we do not investigate whether the reviewer received the Services. We act on reports and remove reviews that break the rules below, but a published review means someone with an account said this, not that we established it was true. Where we label a review as checked or verified, that label means only that the specific thing named was checked.

Prohibited. Do not write or arrange fake reviews, buy or sell reviews, review your own business or a competitor's, offer anything of value in exchange for a review or for removing one, or have an employee, family member, or agent post a review without disclosing the relationship.

How we handle reviews. We publish reviews as submitted. We do not remove or suppress a review because it is negative, and we do not remove a review at the request of the Professional it concerns. We remove a review only if it:

• Contains a threat, slur, or harassment.
• Contains personal information about someone else, or information about a birth or a health condition belonging to a person who did not consent to sharing it.
• Is not about an actual experience with the Services.
• Is spam, an advertisement, or obviously off-topic.
• Was posted by someone with an undisclosed connection to the business.
• Must be removed under a legal obligation or a court order.

When we remove a review we tell the person who wrote it, tell them why, and give them a way to respond.

Your Content. You keep ownership of what you post. You give us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, display, and distribute your Content for the purpose of operating and promoting the Platform. This licence ends when you delete the Content, except for copies already distributed and for backups retained for a reasonable period.

Our Content. The Platform, its design, software, and our trademarks belong to us. You get a limited, revocable, non-transferable licence to use the Platform for its intended purpose.

Automated access. Do not scrape, crawl, or harvest Content or Professional listings, and do not use the Platform or its data to train machine learning or artificial intelligence models, without our prior written permission.

12. Copyright and takedown

We respect intellectual property rights. If you believe Content on the Platform infringes your copyright, send us a notice with the information listed below:

Copyright complaints
BirthBridge, LLC
Texas, United States
hello@mybirthbridge.com

Your notice must identify the work, identify the infringing material and where it is, give your contact details, state that you have a good faith belief the use is not authorized, and state under penalty of perjury that your notice is accurate and you are authorized to act. We will respond to valid notices, and we will terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.

If your Content was removed and you believe that was a mistake, you may send a counter-notice to the same address.

Full details of how we handle copyright complaints, counter-notices, and repeat infringement are in our Copyright and DMCA Policy.

13. Acceptable use

Do not:

• Impersonate anyone or misrepresent your qualifications, identity, or affiliation.
• Harass, threaten, defame, or discriminate against anyone.
• Post content that is unlawful, obscene, hateful, or infringing.
• Give medical advice you are not qualified to give, or make claims about health outcomes you cannot support.
• Discourage anyone from seeking medical care.
• Use the Platform to collect personal information about other Users beyond what a booking requires.
• Send unsolicited commercial messages.
• Interfere with, probe, or disrupt the Platform, or attempt to gain unauthorized access.
• Use the Platform for anything unlawful, or in breach of any professional obligation you have.

Report a violation to hello@mybirthbridge.com.

14. Suspension and termination

By you. You may close your account at any time in your settings or by emailing hello@mybirthbridge.com.

By us. We may suspend or close your account if you materially breach these Terms, if we reasonably believe your use creates a risk to other Users or to us, if we are required to by law, or if we discontinue the Platform. Except where a delay would create a risk of harm or is legally prohibited, we will tell you why and give you a chance to respond. Where the issue can be fixed, we will say how.

Effect. On termination your licence to use the Platform ends. Bookings already made remain your responsibility to honour or resolve.

Getting your data. For 90 days after your account closes you may request an export of your account, booking, and message data, and we will provide it in a portable format. After that, retention follows our Privacy Policy.

Survival. Sections 3, 9 (for amounts owed), 11 (licence grant), 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22 (for disclosure obligations and forfeited rewards), and any Schedule that by its nature should survive, continue after termination.

15. Disclaimers

No warranty. Except where the law does not allow it, the Platform is provided "as is" and "as available." We disclaim all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and any warranty arising from course of dealing or usage of trade. We do not warrant that the Platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure.

We do not guarantee Professionals or Services. We do not control, supervise, direct, or guarantee the Services. We do not guarantee that a Professional's credentials are current, that their insurance is in force, or that the Services will meet your needs or produce any outcome.

Inherent risk. Pregnancy, birth, lactation, and the postpartum period involve risks that no service can eliminate. Support services, including doula support, lactation consulting, and childbirth education, are not medical care and are not a substitute for medical care. You accept the risks inherent in the Services you choose.

These disclaimers do not apply where the law does not permit them. Nothing here excludes liability for fraud, for wilful misconduct, for gross negligence, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded, and nothing limits your rights under consumer protection law. See Schedule B for Canada.

16. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

Excluded damages. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, or loss of goodwill, even if we were told they were possible.

Cap. Our total liability to you for all claims arising out of or relating to the Platform or these Terms is limited to the greater of (a) the total amount you paid to BirthBridge in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, and (b) US$100.

Not applicable where prohibited. Some jurisdictions do not allow these exclusions or limits, so they may not apply to you. In particular:

• Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.
• For users in Quebec, we do not exclude or limit liability for bodily or moral injury, and Section 16 is read subject to Schedule B.

17. Indemnity

You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless BirthBridge, its officers, employees, and agents from any third-party claim, loss, liability, damage, or reasonable legal cost arising from (a) your use of the Platform, (b) your breach of these Terms or of any law, (c) your Content, and (d) if you are a Professional, the Services you provide and any act or omission in providing them.

We will notify you of any claim we seek indemnity for, and you may control the defence provided you do not settle in a way that imposes any obligation on us without our written consent.

This Section does not apply to the extent a claim arises from our own negligence or wilful misconduct, and it does not apply to consumers where consumer protection law prohibits it.

18. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. We will post the new version with a new "Last Updated" date.

For changes that materially affect your rights or obligations, we will give you at least 30 days' notice by email or through the Platform before they take effect. If you keep using the Platform after that, you accept the change. If you do not accept it, you may close your account before the change takes effect, and we will refund any prepaid fees for the unused portion of a subscription term.

We will not apply a material change retroactively to a dispute that arose before the change.

19. General

• Entire agreement. These Terms, the Schedules, and the policies listed below are the whole agreement between us on this subject, and replace any earlier agreement or understanding. Where a signed agreement between us covers the same subject, that agreement controls. - Privacy Policy - Consumer Health Data Policy - Health Information Policy - Health Information Agreements - Cookie Policy - Trust and Safety Policy - Copyright and DMCA Policy - Referral and Affiliate Program Terms - Complaints and Appeals Policy - Law Enforcement and Government Requests - Artificial Intelligence Transparency Policy - Security and Vulnerability Disclosure - Accessibility Statement
• Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, it is modified to the minimum extent necessary or removed, and the rest continues in force.
• No waiver. If we do not enforce a provision, that is not a waiver of it.
• Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, on notice to you.
• Force majeure. Neither party is liable for a failure to perform caused by an event beyond its reasonable control, including natural disaster, war, civil disturbance, labour action, epidemic, or failure of a public utility or telecommunications network. This does not excuse an obligation to pay money already owed.
• Notices. We give notice by email to the address on your account or by posting in the Platform. You give notice to hello@mybirthbridge.com, with a copy by mail to the address in Section 1.
• Electronic agreements. You agree to contract electronically, and that electronic signatures, acceptances, and records satisfy any legal requirement for writing or signature.
• No third-party beneficiaries. These Terms do not give rights to anyone who is not a party.
• Relationship. Nothing creates a partnership, joint venture, agency, franchise, or employment relationship between us.
• Your consumer rights are preserved. Nothing in these Terms limits, waives, or takes away any non-waivable right you have under the consumer protection law of your state, province, or territory, and any provision that attempts to do so does not apply to you to that extent. Schedule B sets this out in more detail for Canada.
• Language. These Terms are drafted in English. See Schedule B for Quebec.
• Accessibility. We are working toward WCAG 2.1 Level AA and we treat accessibility defects as bugs. If you encounter a barrier, or need these Terms or any part of the Platform in an alternative format, contact hello@mybirthbridge.com and we will provide the information and remediate the barrier.

20. Dispute resolution, United States

This Section applies only to users in the United States. It does not apply to users in Canada. Canadian users see Schedule B.

Talk to us first. Before starting a formal proceeding, contact us at hello@mybirthbridge.com with a description of the dispute and what you want. We will do the same. If we cannot resolve it within 60 days, either of us may proceed.

Arbitration. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Platform that is not resolved informally will be settled by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. Arbitration is conducted by a single arbitrator. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

Location and format. Arbitration will take place in the county where you live, or remotely by video or on documents, at your election.

Costs. For consumer claims we will pay the filing, administration, and arbitrator fees to the extent required by the AAA rules, and we will pay them in full for any claim under US$10,000 unless the arbitrator finds the claim frivolous.

Class action waiver. Arbitration is individual only. Neither of us may bring a class, collective, consolidated, or representative action, and the arbitrator may not consolidate claims or preside over any representative proceeding. If this waiver is held unenforceable as to a particular claim, that claim proceeds in court and the rest of this Section still applies to all other claims.

Public injunctive relief. Nothing in this Section waives any right to seek public injunctive relief, and a claim for public injunctive relief may not be arbitrated. If such a claim is asserted, that claim alone is severed from arbitration and may be brought in court, and it will be stayed pending arbitration of all other claims. This paragraph is severable from the rest of this Section, and if it is held unenforceable, the remainder of this Section continues to apply in full.

Small claims. Either of us may bring an individual claim in small claims court instead of arbitration, if it qualifies.

Injunctive relief. Either of us may seek injunctive relief in court to protect intellectual property or to stop unauthorized access to the Platform.

Opt out. You may opt out of arbitration by emailing hello@mybirthbridge.com with your name, account email, and a statement that you opt out, within 30 days of first accepting these Terms. Opting out does not affect anything else in these Terms, and we will not treat you differently for it.

Delegation. The arbitrator decides all issues of arbitrability, except that a court decides whether the class action waiver is enforceable.

Coordinated filings. If 25 or more similar claims are filed by or with coordinated counsel, the parties will work with the AAA to apply its mass arbitration procedures, including staged filing and fee arrangements.

Governing law. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Texas, without regard to conflict of laws rules. For claims not subject to arbitration, the state and federal courts located in Texas have jurisdiction, and you consent to that jurisdiction, except where the law of your state gives you the right to bring a claim where you live.

Time limit. Any claim must be brought within one year after it arises, or it is permanently barred, except where a longer period is required by law.

Severability of this Section. If any part of this Section 20 other than the class action waiver is held unenforceable, that part is severed and the rest continues.

21. Contact

BirthBridge, LLC
Texas, United States

For anything covered by these Terms, including support, legal, privacy, trust and safety, security, and accessibility, contact hello@mybirthbridge.com.

22. Referral and affiliate programs

We run programs that reward people for introducing new Users to the Platform. These are summarised here and set out in full in the Referral and Affiliate Program Terms.

What is rewarded. A reward is for introducing someone to BirthBridge. It is never a payment for steering a Family to a particular Professional, and it is never paid by a Professional to us or by us to a Professional for sending clients their way. See Section 3.

If you promote BirthBridge, you must say that you are being rewarded. This is not optional and it is not a matter of style. United States law, under the FTC's Endorsement Guides and its Rule on Consumer Reviews and Testimonials, and Canadian law, under the Competition Act's rules on false or misleading representations, both require that a material connection between you and a business be disclosed clearly and prominently wherever you make the recommendation. So:

• Say it in the post itself, not only in a profile bio, a linked page, or a comment.
• Say it in plain words. "BirthBridge pays me when you sign up with my link" works. "#ad" or "#sponsored" at the start of a caption works. A block of hashtags at the end does not, and neither does "thanks to my friends at BirthBridge."
• Say it in every post, video, story, email, and message where you make the recommendation, in the same language as the recommendation.
• Only recommend what you actually believe. Do not claim an experience you did not have, and do not make claims about health, safety, birth outcomes, or what a Professional will do for someone.

What is not allowed. Do not create accounts to claim your own reward, do not enrol people without their knowledge, do not send unsolicited commercial messages, and do not represent that you speak for BirthBridge. Rewards obtained through any of these are forfeited, and we may close the account.

Canada. If you send commercial electronic messages to anyone in Canada to promote BirthBridge, Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation applies to you directly, and the consent, identification, and unsubscribe requirements in Schedule B5 are yours to meet, not ours.

Changes. We may change, suspend, or end a Referral Program at any time on notice through the Platform. Rewards already earned and confirmed before the change are not affected.

Schedule B. Canada

This Schedule applies if you are in Canada. Where it differs from the main body of these Terms, this Schedule controls.

B1. Section 20 does not apply

Section 20 (Dispute Resolution, United States) does not apply to you. You are not required to arbitrate, you do not waive any right to participate in a class proceeding, and no time limit in Section 20 applies to you. Limitation periods are those set by the law of your province.

B2. Governing law and where you can sue

These Terms are governed by the laws of the province or territory where you live and the federal laws of Canada that apply there.

You may bring proceedings in the courts of the province or territory where you live, and we agree to those courts having jurisdiction. Nothing in these Terms requires you to bring a claim anywhere else, and nothing waives a right you have to sue where you live.

If you are in Quebec, this reflects your right under the Civil Code of Quebec, which provides that a waiver of your right to bring an action in Quebec cannot be set up against you.

B3. Your consumer rights are preserved

Nothing in these Terms limits, waives, or takes away any right you have under the consumer protection law of your province or territory, and any provision that attempts to do so does not apply to you to that extent.

This includes, without limiting it:

• Statutory warranties on the quality and performance of services, including under Ontario's Consumer Protection Act, British Columbia's Business Practices and Consumer Protection Act, Quebec's Consumer Protection Act, and equivalent legislation in other provinces. Those warranties cannot be waived and we do not attempt to waive them.
• Your right to commence or join a class proceeding.
• Rules about automatic renewal, cancellation, and refunds. Where provincial law gives you a cancellation or cooling-off right, or requires a specific renewal notice, that law applies and prevails over Section 8.
• Any prohibition on disclaiming liability.

B4. Liability

Section 16 (Limitation of liability) applies to you only to the extent the law of your province permits.

If you are in Quebec: we do not exclude or limit our liability for bodily or moral injury, in any amount or in any respect, and the cap in Section 16 does not apply to a claim for bodily or moral injury. Article 1474 of the Civil Code of Quebec prohibits such an exclusion and we do not attempt one.

In every province, nothing excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded.

The disclaimers in Section 15 do not exclude any statutory warranty that cannot be excluded under the law of your province.

B5. Commercial electronic messages

We send commercial electronic messages to Canadian recipients only with your express or implied consent, as required by Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation. Every commercial message identifies BirthBridge, gives a mailing address and an electronic contact where we can be reached, and includes an unsubscribe mechanism that remains functional for at least 60 days after the message is sent. We give effect to an unsubscribe request within 10 business days.

Professionals must also comply with CASL when they send commercial messages, including through the Platform. Do not send unsolicited commercial messages to anyone in Canada.

B6. Professional regulation in Canada

Regulation of birth professionals in Canada is provincial and varies by profession.

• Midwifery is a regulated health profession in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and the territories, among others. "Midwife" is a protected title in those jurisdictions. Only a person registered with the relevant regulatory college may use it, or hold themselves out as able to practise midwifery.
• Doulas, lactation consultants, childbirth educators, and postpartum support professionals are not regulated health professions in Canada. There is no protected title and no provincial college. Certification from a training or certifying organization is meaningful, but it is not government regulation, and BirthBridge does not represent otherwise.

If you are a Professional in Canada, you must:

• Use only titles you are entitled to use in every province where you offer Services.
• Not perform any controlled or restricted act reserved to a regulated health profession unless you are a member of that profession and authorized to perform it.
• Comply with the advertising and professional conduct standards of any regulatory college you belong to. Some Canadian colleges restrict or prohibit the use of testimonials in advertising. If your college does, tell us at hello@mybirthbridge.com and we will adjust how reviews are displayed on your profile.

If you are a Family, you can verify a registered midwife's status directly with the regulatory college in your province. We link to the relevant register on each profile where one exists.

B7. Pricing and taxes in Canada

Prices shown to Canadian users include all mandatory fees and applicable taxes, including GST or HST, QST in Quebec, and PST where it applies, so the amount you see is the amount you pay. We do not add unavoidable charges later in the checkout flow.

B8. Quebec, language

Quebec residents who would prefer to contract in French should contact us at hello@mybirthbridge.com before creating an account, and we will make arrangements with you. You may correspond with us in French at any time and we will respond in French.

B9. Health information

HIPAA is a United States law and does not apply in Canada. See our Health Information Policy for how health information is handled in Canada, and the Health Information Agreements page for the agreements available to regulated health professionals and organizations.

B10. Complaints

If we cannot resolve a complaint, you may contact the consumer protection authority in your province, and for privacy matters the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or your provincial privacy commissioner. Contact details are in Schedule B of our Privacy Policy.