About the authors of the blog Autism Essentials Israel: Hagai and Shira Reiner. Parents of four children, three sons and one daughter. Our three boys have special needs. These include: Autism, epilepsy, ADHD, learning disabilities, and EOE.
Our main goal is the accessibility of information, which took a lot of effort and time to learn and accumulate. And we want to make parenting special needs simpler for families at the beginning of the path after a diagnosis.
Come learn more about Autism Essentials Israel. On this page, you will find information about Hagai and Shira – the blog authors, and about our activities.
About the Authors of – Autism Essentials Israel
I’m Hagai: a former English teacher. Today I translate medical documents from English to Hebrew and visa versa.
One of our focuses in the blog is stem cell and umbilical cord blood therapy tourism. I do translations for parents who want to receive medical treatments abroad.
My personal goal is to gather and present information that can be useful to parents of special needs children.
In some of the blog articles you will find my point of view as a father of children with special needs.
I’m Shira: a registered nurse at Sheba Medical Center’s cord blood bank. I’m a developmental nurse and parenting guide, with a community nursing certificate.
I make available to you the medical information I acquired in my studies, from my work experience, and as a mother of complex children who undergo a lot of treatments in Israel and abroad.
You can receive parental training from me on a variety of topics such as: potty training, what is autism, what to do during a seizure, how to homeschool a special needs child, and more .
We are parents to four children, three sons and one daughter. Our three boys have special needs. Dolev has autism, drug-resistant epilepsy and EOE. Nevo has autism, and Dov has drug-resistant epilepsy and autism.
While caring for the three boys we learned a lot the hard way. Trying to provide Abigail with a happy childhood among three special brothers is another challenge.
We hope sharing our experiences and the knowledge we have gained will provide other families with tools that were difficult to acquire.
Our Vision
Our main goal is to make parenting children with special needs easier. We encountered many obstacles on our way.
Some of our work is to make our home more accessible for special needs. We hope to do the same in health and educational institutions. For example, we are working on a project to help hospitals reduce anxiety with AAC.
We are working to import the medical treatments that helped our child abroad. So children like ours will be able to receive them in Israel. Without difficult flights and without spending so much money on them.
Medical Tourism Facilitation
A very significant part of our journey was Dolev’s stem cell therapy. We took a risk. It was something that we have only just begun to learn about in depth. We did it against the recommendations of all our doctors in Israel.
On the one hand, we were told not much could be done to help him. He would not survive to reach the age of six. On the other hand, we were told treatment abroad will kill him.
But the risk was calculated. We did our research and believed the doctors in Israel were unaware of the truth. This treatment was the best chance to improve Dolev’s quality of life in the time he had left. In any case, epilepsy will kill him before stem cells could do what they feared.
We realized that the warnings against stem cell therapy are inaccurate. There are actually a variety of types of cells. Some are more dangerous and some are safe for medical use.
We knew about stem cell therapy as a treatment for autism. However, the therapy also stopped Dolev’s seizures. So far his tests are normal and he is also without medication.
Seeing Dolev’s amazing results, we believe we must tell his story. Anyone who is in a similar situation, with a chance to improve from stem cell therapy, must know about it. To this end, we accompany patients in the process of registering for treatment. You can get treatment at Swiss Medica with our help or consult about other clinics.
Where else can you find us?
Apart from this website, we are active and can be found on multiple other platforms:
- Our parent training and support program for parents after an autism diagnosis can be handled through Zoom or at the clinic in our home in Netanya, Israel.
- The contents of the blog are published on: our Facebook page, Hagai’s Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.
- Recorded content can be viewed on our YouTube channel and the Facebook groups for stem cells and parenting skills. Join these Facebook groups to participate in live sessions. You can also receive notifications about such meetings in our silent WhatsApp group.
From time to time we are guests on the radio and at other companies. We give lectures or are interviewed by news sites, and more. You can find articles, recordings, etc. on our media page.