Krystal Cascetta, Lindsay Clancy, and the impossibility of being a mom in American medicine
Medical professionals often find it very difficult to seek medical care for themselves.
In Igbo-Nigerian culture, new moms receive exquisite care from their own mothers, mothers-in-law, or surrogate mothers for the first few months postpartum. After each of my daughters was born, I was blessed to participate in this tradition, called omugwo, which allowed me to be nurtured by the mothers who came before me. They cooked and cleaned. Massaged my belly and taught me how to breastfeed. They took care of my newborn overnight. These women were my village. This nurturing helped me recover from childbirth and grow into my own role as a mother.
While I was pregnant and postpartum with my two children, I was a chief resident and fellow in training to become a reproductive psychiatrist. I saw the ways my Nigerian heritage protected me from the harshness of the American maternal experience. So many of my patients were mothering alone. While struggling to free themselves from the grip of depression, anxiety, OCD, and trauma, they were juggling the herculean task of caring for a newborn. They didn’t have the protection of my cultural cradle, and their American individualism had health consequences. Running on no sleep with little to no support, many of these patients were also burdened with the inability to afford diapers, housing insecurity, abusive partners, or jobs that were trying to fire them while away on leave.
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