Dr. Cristina Kendall: Dr. Mom, Maternity as an Associate Dentist

Dr. Cristina Kendall

I took my associate dentist position to cover a maternity leave, but the dentist changed her mind and didn’t return to the office. Since I liked the office, this was fine with me, and I didn’t think much about it at the time.

Now it’s suddenly relevant.

Working as a dentist while pregnant and as a new mother has its challenges. The circumstances of dentistry permit less privacy, present more hazards, and require more scheduling than many other fields. At the same time, dentistry provides flexibility and comfort that many other professions may not.

I’m Pregnant!

Many people advise keeping your pregnancy private until the second trimester, when the risk of miscarriage declines significantly. Working in a dental clinic, that could be a terrible mistake. I value my privacy and did not want to discuss my parenthood plans with my colleagues. Yet, when I learned that I was pregnant, one of the first phone calls I made was to the owner-dentist. I was still hugging my husband, holding the at-home test kit in my hand, when the thought popped into my mind, I can’t administer nitrous oxide anymore. Looking back, it would have been wise to tell the team when I was just considering becoming pregnant, to avoid accidental exposure in the earliest days of pregnancy. While appropriate scavenging systems were in place, I wanted to eliminate any risk of teratogenic exposure moving forward.

See Her Before She Leaves!

Things a pregnant woman doesn’t want to do: stand up, lean forward, bump people with their belly, or accidentally walk into a room while someone is taking an x-ray. I am thankful that I was able to keep working until the day before I gave birth. It wasn’t easy. My lower back ached. I was short of breath. Acid reflux burned my throat. Sometimes, I’d knock a patient in the head with my belly.

One thing that gave me great pleasure was hearing my patients try to get their procedures in before my maternity leave. The front desk helped, warning them to, “See her before she leaves!” My patients were often a source of cheer. Sometimes, it felt like they were more excited than I was, recalling their own early parenting experiences.

I Have Patients Tomorrow Morning!

My water broke at 11 p.m., nine days before my daughter’s due date. It caught me completely by surprise. I had convinced myself that my daughter would arrive late, as is common for first pregnancies. While reality sunk in, I couldn’t stop telling my husband, “I can’t give birth now, I have patients tomorrow morning!”

The rush of emotions of motherhood swept away my thoughts of dentistry for several weeks.

Really, the extreme sleep deprivation of feeding my daughter every two to three hours made it impossible to think about anything at all. When the haze lifted sometime in the third month, I started looking ahead at my calendar. Given that I had trouble remembering when I last fed the baby, I worried: Will I remember how to hold a handpiece? How to do a filling?

The first procedure I had planned for my return to work was an implant crown impression. As the date approached, I snuck into the office to review and make plans for other procedures.

I’ll Take Fridays Off, Please

My husband, like many “office” workers, now works from home full-time. He reminds me that does not mean he can take care of the baby full-time, but it certainly is convenient. It makes me feel reassured, knowing that he’s around to help our baby’s caregivers in case of an emergency.

While I must work outside of my home, I have the comparative luxury of choosing to work only three and a half days each week. Also, as an associate, I can generally leave the cares of work behind at the office. I can see that people who work from home have greater trouble separating their work lives from their home lives.

That’s My Milk in the Fridge

Mothers of babies in a dental office have the same problems as at many other workplaces.

In my experience at several clinics, there are no truly private, comfortable spaces for pumping breast milk. Taking time out of the schedule to pump affects the whole team’s productivity. Storing breast milk in the shared refrigerator isn’t ideal. A shared refrigerator’s door is opened frequently, so milk is more likely to turn than if kept in a personal refrigerator. I verified the too-warm temperature with a thermometer.

“That explains why my cheese cubes get sweaty,” remarked a hygienist.

To me, these inconveniences are worth the trouble. I made a makeshift privacy screen by sewing Velcro strips onto a window curtain. Sometimes I rush home during a break to drop off my milk.

As frustrating as these things can be, I can’t imagine myself not doing dentistry.