04/02/2026
A moment from the Kreißsaal today.
A woman came in to give birth.
45 years old.
First baby.
Her partner left when he found out she was pregnant.
Later, a comment floated through the room, almost like a joke:
“Wer bekommt denn mit 45 noch ein Kind?”
(Who even has a baby at 45?)
And something in me tightened. It took self-restaint to not respond:
"Wer kann in einer Klinik arbeiten mit solchen Vorurteile?"
(Who can work in a clinic with such prejudices?)
The birth room is not a place for judgment.
It is a place for vulnerability.
For complexity.
For stories we cannot see at first glance.
Maybe this mother has wanted this child for years.
Maybe life unfolded slowly, unevenly, painfully.
Maybe this was not “late” at all.
Maybe this was simply… her time. Her life.
So I pointed out, gently:
There is something beautiful about a woman becoming a mother at 45.
Perhaps this wish has lived in her for a long time, and only now is her life making space for it.
It may be different, but just as worthy.
Thinking about this later, I remembered the first sentence of the German Grundgesetz:
“Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar.”
Human dignity is inviolable.
Not only in law, but in rooms like this.
In the way we speak.
In what we allow.
In what we protect.
Birth is not a competition.
Not a timeline.
Not a moral achievement.
It is a continuum.
And every family arrives carrying their own history in their hands.
Sometimes the most important work in the clinic is not an intervention.
Sometimes it is simply safeguarding the sacredness of the room.
