After giving birth, you want to take time for yourself and recover, but you can’t because now you have a baby that is your number one priority. You have to make sure that baby is 110% taken care of before you can focus on yourself. Yes, you would have help, but the mom still does the majority. The mom has to do all this in 6-8 weeks. She might not be fully recovered or give everything planned for her baby, but if she doesn’t return to work, she might not have a job. In the United States, maternity leave for women is 12 weeks of unpaid leave and job protection.
Though, it takes 6-8 weeks to fully recover after giving birth. 85% of women will have postpartum depression. According to Hopkins medicine, “Without treatment, postpartum depression symptoms can hang on for months, even years.” That is why the United States should have longer maternity leave. When comparing the United States to other countries, it is listed by Hire With Near as “one of eight in the world that does not guarantee paid maternity leave.”
Some of the countries that guarantee women 100% of their wage throughout the entire period are France, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, and Spain. The country with the longest maternity leave is Sweden with 69 weeks at SEK 250 to SEK 1,116 per day. The ILO (International Labour Organization) standards stipulate a minimum maternity leave period of 14 weeks. The ILO was established in 1919 and created a labor standard, which also includes providing maternity protection for women.
According to Velocity Global “The U.S. provides fewer maternity leave protections than any other industrialized nation.” The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) makes it a requirement for employers that have 50 or more employees to offer workers a minimum of 12 weeks of unpaid maternity leave each year. This is the only federal mandate governing parental leave in the United States. The federal law in the United States treats maternity leave as an additional benefit, leaving the specific conditions up to the employers.
