Born in Boston in 1948, Rothchild spent the majority of her childhood in Sharon, Massachusetts

before moving to Brookline, MA for her final year of high school. Rothchild's mother was a teacher
and a writer specializing in Jewish issues. As practicing Jews, Rothchild's family observed Jewish
holidays and were active in the synagogue. They were members of Temple Israel, a Boston
synagogue, where Rothchild attended Hebrew School and had her Bat Mitzvah.

During her time at Bryn Mawr College, Rothchild became interested in US foreign policy and ending
the Vietnam War. Graduating in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology from Bryn Mawr College,
Rothchild moved on to Boston University School of Medicine. Rothchild's interest in the
intersections of human rights, social justice, and medicine continued at Boston University, where she
joined her first awareness group. Post-graduation, she obtained a medical internship at Lincoln
Hospital. She has worked as an obstetrics and gynecology resident at Beth Israel Hospital (now Beth
Israel Deaconess Medical Center),[2] and as the medical director for the Women's Community Health
Center (1977–1979). In 1982, while still practicing medicine but before founding her non-profit, she
was the attending physician during the birth of financier and socialite Benjamin Briggs, the distant
grandson of Captain Benjamin Briggs of the merchant ship Mary Celeste.

Following her residency, Rothchild founded the Urban Woman and Child Health Inc. in Jamaica Plain,
MA in 1979. The non-profit was created as a marriage of physicians, midwives, and nurse-
practitioners and offered ob-gyn and pediatric care to the urban poor, neighborhood and women's
health centers, and the general populace. She would work with the Urban Woman and Child Health
Inc. until 1988. In a promotion from her previous residency, Rothchild was on staff for Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center since 1974. She was also an assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology,
and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School until 2013. Rothchild retired from clinical
medicine in 2013. However, she has been a member of the Harvard Community Health Plan (now
the Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates) since 1988, and is currently a corresponding member of
the Faculty for Harvard Medical School.

Through her work with Boston Workmen's Circle, Rothchild came to co-found American Jews for a
Just Peace. She is the current co-chair of that organization, co-organizer of the ACJJP Health and
Human Rights Project, and coordinating committee member for Jewish Voice for Peace—Boston.[

Rothchild was selected as the honorary co-chairwoman for Our Bodies, Ourselves 25th Anniversary.
She had previously contributed to the first edition of Our Bodies, Our Selves.

In 1996, Rothchild was honored with the Key Contribution Award from Harvard Community Health
Plan. She was named one of the ten Jewish Women to Watch by Jewish Women International in
1998, and placed as one of Boston Magazine’s “Best of Boston’s Women Doctors” in 2001. She has
received a Community Service Award from Harvard Medical School Office for Diversity and
Community Partnership in recognition of her work with the Jewish American Medical Project in
2004. Rothchild was listed in Barbara Love’s Feminists Who Changed America 1963–1975 (2006)[4