I cannot help but reply to this thread. I and my colleagues who graduated med school in the early 2000s almost all had babies during or shortly after residency. The other smaller group had them during medical school(yes, females), and the final small group waited until after residency. I had both of mine during residency on purpose (excellent low cost medical care and we were ready at age 28 to start). Residency programs have allowed short leaves for babies for well over 20yrs. Short leaves meaning 4-6 weeks(using 2weeks of vacation and typically having some indep study obligations for 2 of those weeks if you chose over 4 weeks off). I have friends who are female (focusing on that aince we are the ones who actually have to grow the human and then recover) and in surgery, pediatrics, psychiatry, derm, obgyn, internal medicine including subspecialists. All over the country. Every single physician female that I know (all around my era or 5-6yrs younger) had our first babies between age 27 and 33 . All. This is over 30 women i can easily count. Only two chose to take more than the 4-6 weeks off in residency and hence delayed their completion. Only one decided since then that she wanted to be a SAHM. Many of us including me have chosen to be part time at some point(commonly for MDs that is still 30-38 hrs per week and still pays 150-250k depending on field, or about 25% less than FT in same field). Transitioning to PT and back to FT is accepted and doable in many areas of medicine including surgical &subspecialties, as long as one has a flexible mindset and communicates early with their group. The ones who waited until private practice to start babies got the now more typical 10-12weeks off for maternity.
Compared to med school and residency rigors, fitting in babies and “sucking up” a short maternity leave (to finish on time) is no big deal. So many women have done it, it is easy to talk to others and have a plan. I know many female lawyers and folks in other fields that report far less flexibility to have kids and not delay a career.
I chat with premeds all the time about this issue, and am a part of women in medicine advocacy that does this. Even 20yrs ago, Duke Med had easy access to talk to attendings (senior docs) and get all these family balance questions sorted. Men and women were encouraged to talk about it and ask the questions on how a family could make it work day to day, especially as many of us married other doctors or other busy people(law, big tech, corporate finance, etc).