Dr. Mom

Back in May, The Wall Street Journal ran an intriguing Health Journal piece Paging Dr. Mom: The Role Mothers Play in Health Care (subscription or fee required). Reporter Tara Parker-Pope described when mothers, including her own, diagnosed life-threatening ailments, including appendicitis, a brain tumor, and an intestinal blockage, in their children before doctors could identify the problems.

Combine this uncanny ability to sense children's illnesses with a factoid from the Kaiser Family Foundation that 80 percent of mothers choose the family doctor and ferry children to most appointments -- and moms become the heroes of pediatric healthcare. Throw this powerful role into the work/family balance and we've got several paradoxes of motherhood: How do we balance this role in our children's lives with our work obligations? How do we remain the hero while sometimes delegating our children's health care to husbands, family members, and child-care givers? Do you ever feel guilty about your children's health?

When my youngest was two days shy of her second birthday, she had a seizure while in her high chair eating Cheerios. My husband and I were both in our usual frantic get-ready-for-work-get-three-kids-ready mode. My husband, who is usually far steadier in emergencies, froze. I became the calm, steely one, attending to our toddler, ordering the older kids upstairs, telling my husband to call 911.

Our daughter had another seizure next to me in the ambulance and three more in my arms the space of three hours at Children's Hospital. She had a spinal tap, a CAT scan, and a brain scan. The neurologists at one of the world's leading pediatric facilities tried -- and failed -- to assess the problem.

Somehow, I never panicked, even after two sleepless nights spent in a chair at her bedside trying to keep her from pulling out her IV's. I also never gave a minute's thought to my work responsibilities or even the needs of my older children. Our daughter was eventually diagnosed by our pediatrician with a rare strain of rotovirus. I'm happy to say she's fine now. I'm still amazed at how calm I was throughout the ordeal -- almost as if my usual work/family juggling abilities transmogrified into a previously unused emergency chemical that allowed me to focus only on my child and her needs.

Could my husband or another caregiver have tapped into the same type of reserve? Could I have accessed the same focus for someone else's child? I think so. I hope so. Research cited in the Journal showed that "foster" rat moms experienced chemical changes that helped them raise offspring -- the answer here is not pure maternal biology.

What about you? Have you experienced this eerie Dr. Mom (or Dr. Dad) sixth sense? Do you automatically throw off work responsibilities when confronted with a child's illness? How do you balance -- or get frustrated by -- meeting work responsibilities and your children's health needs?

By Leslie Morgan Steiner |  July 18, 2007; 7:15 AM ET  | Category:  Research
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