According to recently released census numbers, a majority of mothers who worked during pregnancy return before the standard 12 weeks of maternity leave, and some way before that. Although 12 weeks is the amount of time allotted by the country’s national family leave law, more than 25 percent are back at work within two months of giving birth and one in 10—more than half a million women each year—go back to their jobs in four weeks or less.
Here in California, the state allows pregnant mothers without any pregnancy complications to be off four weeks prior to their due date. Pregnant women with medical or obstetric problems may be disabled earlier at their obstetrician’s discretion if a condition warrants it. After delivery, the state allows six weeks postpartum maternity leave if a woman has a vaginal delivery and eight weeks if she has a cesarean delivery. After this time a woman may apply for an additional extended leave, called FMLA, which is additional six weeks of paid leave. The ability to qualify for FMLA varies from company to company, and the exact amount of time may vary from state to state.
“Having given birth twice, I had eight weeks off after I had my son because I worked for the University which had excellent disability benefits,” Dr. Bohn said. “I only took four weeks off after giving birth to my daughter by cesarean section because once in private practice you do not have the same benefits.”
After Dr. Bohn’s own experience and after taking care of many postpartum moms, we think it is very difficult to go back to work under eight weeks. Babies are still very small at this time and for many women, the breast feeding routine is just being established.
Once a woman returns to work and has to juggle the demands of the work day and pumping her milk, the supply naturally decreases. Babies are still also waking up several times during the night between every 1.5 to 3 hours. This makes it difficult to be alert and efficient at work.
We think the ideal time to return to work would be at 12 weeks. By this time breast feeding is well established. Babies tend to sleep between 3 and 5 hour stretches at night, and some already sleep through the night. They do not have a bowel movement after every feed so less needs to be done during the night to get them quickly back to sleep.
Obviously most women still would like additional bonding time. European countries that give a year are very generous. If the mom has good resources and the financial network, this may be possible here. But here, society debates whether having a woman off work for a year is detrimental to her career. These days, we are living longer and working longer, so ideally, a break like this should not adversely effect her professional future and greatly enhance her personal future, if so desired. Each case, each mother, and each family is unique.
We’d love to hear from you with your experiences and what you think!
Hello,
In Australia a working mum is able to take off 12 months unpaid maternity leave, our government has recently brought in that for mums working at least 10 months prior to the babies birth is now entitled to 18 weeks paid maternity leave which or full time workers equates to $500 a week. This allows so many more woman to re over and enjoy there new borns without the financial pressures.
When I had my first daughter, I got very lucky. It was 1994 and very few companies were giving good maternity leaves. My company gave me fourteen weeks — my daughter only started sleeping through at around that time — and then they allowed me to work from home three days a week (I was an editor) for the first year. Sadly, the company was sold when my daughter was one and I lost the benefit of such a family-friendly company.
With my second daughter, I was on bed rest for about six weeks in my first trimester due a threatened miscarriage. My employer was not understanding, and one of my male counterparts was downright hostile about it. Once my bed rest was lifted, at about fourteen weeks, I went into work and quit my job.