childbirth – Pulse

What Little Separates Us

Adam Lalley March 3, 2023 8 Comments

Among the handful of patients who visited the emergency department one night in June with abdominal pain, rashes or fevers, I especially remember Michelle. She was a woman in her late twenties, eight weeks pregnant with her second child. I was a second-year resident, and she had come for help with something I’d already encountered over a dozen times in my training.

“I think I might be having a miscarriage,” she said. She stopped herself, then looked at me

The Role of a Lifetime

Arya Parhar August 5, 2022 10 Comments

In our first week of neonatology, my third-year classmates Jay, Em and I donned PPE and filed like ducklings into an operating room on the birthing unit.

A young woman sat slouched on the operating table, her unbuttoned hospital gown revealing the S-curve in her spine. Her name, we learned, was Elise.

Beside her stood the anesthesiologist, Dr. Lane. He put a hand on her shoulder.

Toxemia of Pregnancy

Joan Baranow June 10, 2022 5 Comments

There was the bed bent in half,
the needle in the wrist,

the crack of bathroom light under the door.
Your father tried to sleep in the hospital cot

Dignity in Childbirth

Debra Eluobaju February 22, 2022 8 Comments

My interest in women’s health began when, in high school, I became aware of the ongoing genocide in Darfur. Learning about that conflict’s impact on women in terms of sexual trauma and maternal mortality opened my eyes to the depths of inequality that women face in the Global South. This, combined with the fact that I’m a first-generation Nigerian-American, led me to pursue a career in obstetrics and gynecology, with a global-health focus.

A Child Is Born

Rachel Fleishman December 4, 2020 5 Comments

The miracle was that this baby had lived at all. His mother called 911 while in labor, with heroin easing her pain and numbing her conscience. The paramedics arrived at the empty warehouse where she’d been living. She delivered her newborn son in a toilet. The paramedics scooped him out, cut his umbilical cord with her razor blade and brought mother and son to our hospital.

The fact that all this took place should be

Code Pink

Perry Dinardo May 22, 2020 12 Comments

When a code is called in the hospital, it means two things: A caregiver’s day is about to be turned upside-down, and a patient’s world is about to fall to pieces. If you’re a caregiver, when a code is called you look up from your own work and wonder who’ll be sprinting through the halls and whose story is unfolding.

This time, the story was ours.

Birth of a Midwife

Rebecca Leeman January 3, 2020 12 Comments

As a nurse, I was brand new to labor and delivery–and I was on my third night shift in a row. Walking back from a quick break, I was called over by the charge nurse.

“You have the next admit from triage,” she told me. “She’s a live one–and so is her family. They’re carnies.”

“What’s that?” I asked, bewildered.

“You know, the people who do the circus and carnival circuit–gypsies,” she said, innocently using

Ode to the Uterus

Riana B. Jumamil June 14, 2019 4 Comments

They call it

A woman’s coin purse
Buried away like an afterthought
In the folds of her body.

But hers is a feral little thing
Throwing away angry outbursts
With the tide of each moon.

It scoffs at being
Belittled and unused
Writing her opinion in bloody letters.

A Good Cry

Colette Charles June 15, 2018 20 Comments

I was a second-year resident, doing a twenty-four-hour shift on maternity care. I’d spent some arduous nights on call with my attending physician, Dr. Campbell; now we sat at the nursing station, joking about what this one might bring.

My Friend, My Patient

Andrea Eisenberg May 18, 2018 6 Comments

Andrea Eisenberg ~

Seeing patients in my ob/gyn office this morning, I try to stave off the mild nervousness rumbling inside of me. My good friend Monica is having a C-section this afternoon, and I’m performing it.

We met ten years ago, when I walked my three-year-old daughter into Monica’s preschool classroom for the first time. Monica sat on the floor, a child in her lap and others playing around her. Like them,

Birthday Boy

Joe Andrie December 1, 2017 6 Comments

Joe Andrie ~

It’s another day for me as an intern on the labor-and-delivery floor of my large urban hospital–another day scrambling to help pregnant women deliver and trying to keep pace with the unpredictable timetable of the birthing process.

My hospital phone rings. I’m really starting to dread that sound.

It’s the triage nurse. We’re admitting a patient: Mrs. Harris, age thirty-four, who’s had several prior deliveries and therefore carries the

Broken

Jordan Grumet September 3, 2010 No Comments

Jordan Grumet

I was a third-year medical student in the first week of my obstetrics rotation. The obstetrics program was known to be high-pressure, its residents among the best. Mostly women, they were a hard-core group–smart, efficient, motivated–and they scared the heck out of us medical students.

I remember the day clearly: Not only was I on call, but I was assigned to the chief resident’s team. I felt petrified.

We’d started morning rounds as

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