The medical knowledge accumulated during training can be invaluable when facing pregnancy and the arrival of a child — but it can also feel like a burden. “The big problem is that when we get pregnant, we know everything that could go wrong. At first, I was more worried,” said Andressa Heimbecher, 44 years old, an endocrinologist and metabolic specialist in São Paulo, Brazil.

Heimbecher had her first daughter at 39 years and her second at 42 years. As an older expectant mother, she was acutely aware of the risks for genetic abnormalities and malformations. “I underwent every imaginable test, but I realized that, even being a doctor — or perhaps because of it — I wasn’t the one who should take care of myself. I chose extremely qualified colleagues and simply entrusted my care to them.”

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