Motherhood and Medicine
Intense public debates over reproductive technology (e.g., surrogacy, multiple births, fate of frozen embryos) and pregnancy (e.g., maternal-fetal conflicts, abortion) would suggest that medicine’s primary interest in motherhood centers on the limited time between conception and birth. Contributors to the September 2013 issue of widen that circle of medicine’s interest to women’s lifelong experiences as mothers—biological and non. Motherhood-related concerns include a woman medical student’s planning for family and career, the exclusion of pregnant women from drug trials, inducing lactation for nongestating mothers, and women—generally poor and often immigrant—who care for the children of others.