Better the Call Room Than the Courtroom
Midwives: Once again, call time is not your personal time. This select time frame includes patients who may need in-person care and advice. Call time, temporarily, should take precedence over your family, an infant, a toddler, your partner, or your much-needed rest. I acknowledge that this responsibility is challenging.
On Call and Nursing Infants
The majority of maternal on-call care providers are women: midwives, physicians, nurse practitioners, and others. It is an unfortunate reality that providers who are mothers will experience emotional and practical difficulty, on call, to a greater extent than their male counterparts. There is nothing quite as lonely and uncomfortable as pumping breast milk in a freezing cold hospital call room at three o’clock in the morning.
Professional women are, understandably, torn between their duty to patients and family, and, especially, their need to be available to their nursing infants. In the old days, one needed to sequester to collect breast milk, as it required privacy and a reluctance to reveal oneself while performing the task.
This may be considered small comfort, but breast pumps have evolved, and the process can now be accomplished discreetly, under clothing, while you interact with co-workers, make rounds, or even deliver a baby.
I am not suggesting that it is no longer hard to be away from a nursing infant, but collecting milk is, currently, more civilized and less isolating than it once was. I understand that it’s still inconvenient to be away from home. Having spent my share of time in the call room, away from several infants, I can attest that the long nights on call will eventually fade from your memory. Poor choices on call, which result in harm to a mother or baby in your care, will remain with you forever.