So for every mama-HCW navigating this new world: you are seen and appreciated. You are not alone. You are tough and you will persevere. Keep making the decisions that are right for you and your family. Wishing you strength, health, and peace as we progress together!

This is a universal working-parent dilemma, but in our bizarre new realities, finding the right balance feels even higher stakes.

Balancing mother/physician roles is a challenge at baseline: we are devoted to the beloved little human within us, and we are committed to our dear patients around us. How to ever get that balance just right?

On top of this, many hospitals are now initiating no-visitor policies for prenatal care and even for women in labor. And while HCWs deeply understand these measures needed to stop the spread of COVID, giving birth alone feels like an impossibly daunting ask.

Even for those able to arrange safer work conditions, many have partners who are HCWs exposed to COVID daily, and must now live separately from their loved one to optimize safety, at the expense of lacking essential prenatal social support.

Do I keep working on the frontlines even without adequate PPE, enduring anxiety over the unknown consequences of my choice? Or do I step away from work entirely, feeling as though I’ve abandoned my colleagues and patients at a critical time (and being unpaid in the meantime)?

But I’ve heard from so many pregnant HCWs across the country in the past week who are being asked to make impossible decisions right now.

As concerned as I am for their welfare amidst a pandemic and its economic fallouts—most are low-income, many undocumented, almost all with multiple chronic health conditions—they have been so thoughtful to ask, “How are YOU doc? How’s the baby? Are you holding up OK?”

I’m grateful to have supportive colleagues and compassionate program leaders, who have found ways for us to contribute at work while staying off the riskiest front lines. My patients have also been overwhelmingly generous.

A quick note to say: pregnant healthcare workers, we see you and we appreciate you! As a physician and mama navigating this new COVID era, it’s been quite a week.