"[5][6] Critic Linda Welshimer Wagner considered the story "One of the most direct recounting of Williams' experiences as a doctor".
[7] The rejuvenation that the doctor experiences in the presence of the birth event makes him hesitate momentarily to follow scientific protocols.
Literary critic Robert F. Gish wrote: Even in her squalid surroundings, the woman is clean, a cleanliness of a biologically ideal birth, and the doctor is tempted to resist the science's counsel to put anti-gonorrhea drops in the new baby girl's eyes ...[8][9]Literary Marjorie Perloff detected an erotic element in the story: Here, delivery becomes deliverance.
The physical ritual of the birth process becomes, in Williams’ account, a variation on the act of love—the welcome fell of the woman's hands, the pressing down, the strong pull, the relief and relaxation ... by such contact the doctor is "comforted and soothed."
[10]The story concludes as a celebration of the natural beauty and endurance of the working class, of which the narrator has himself evolved socially and professionally to appreciate and gladly serve.