Hellobee Boards

As another former med student (now MD) to chime in, I unfortunately have to agree with @sapphire. Quite a few students had babies, but they all "expanded" to take 5 years to graduate. I think some would do some kind of research project to keep their student loans during that extra year, or an MPH, or something that they were able to be at home a lot.

Unfortunately MS3 clerkships are a huge factor for the residency you will match into, both just in grades (which sadly are still very subjective and basically involve you having to be incredibly invested and eager in every specialty you rotate in) and for the letters of rec you will need later. I would not go into them with less than 100% and I know I would not have been able to perform that soon postpartum! I would have been far too distracted to soak in everything I needed to and have the appropriate level of involvement/enthusiasm needed. Maybe if you can have an elective or two first to ease into it might be more doable.

So I feel like the issue is more being able to have a plan to perform well on your clerkships, rather than the one required week you have to power through. That will be painful but finite. Just make sure that you have a strong enough plan to not have your clerkships suffer, particularly if you want to get into a competitive specialty or residency program.

Residency can be a bit more flexible (within reason, 12 wks of FMLA leave still had to be made up at the end). My program was pretty competitive but very decently family friendly, so there was often a baby boom R3 year!