HOW do US women physically manage to back to work so quickly after birth?!

[boboismylove]

I was watching The Good Fight the other day and one of the characters said she was planning on returning to work THREE DAYS after birth. I know this is fictional but I looked it up and apparently 1 in 4 American women return to work within 10 DAYS.

This is obviously awful. But I don't actually understand how it's physically possible?! I couldn't sit up properly for a month after birth, and was limping for around the same time. I didn't have a C section, and technically had a relatively smooth birth - so I can't imagine going back earlier! How do women in the US manage it physically?! What about prolapse risk? Looking after stitches? Extremely heavy bleeding? - and again, this is only with a "normal" birth.

I know even in quite a few developing countries they have 6 weeks leave - maybe connected to the idea women should rest and be housebound for 40 days.

In some professions it is still, sadly, frowned upon to take time off for any reason. However, by law (in California at any rate) there is provision for paid time off and job protection. In fact, San Francisco has this year added a rather generous (in US terms) parental leave law that augments the state, making it perfectly plausible to have 22 weeks of protected time off. Not nearly as much as in other countries, but certainly a big improvement on what it was. It is exceptionally complicated to manage - a flipping nightmare - but at least in my workplace we are committed to encouraging all parents to take full advantage.

Now if only career public shaming would stop, parents could enjoy time with their new family member! I am constantly reminding women (yes, women) who did return to work within days of giving birth, that times have changed and there is no medal of courage given for such barbaric choices.

Physically, I think I could have managed an office job with an easy commute within 2 weeks of the birth. I had twins with a C-section so not straightforward, but I really didn't have a hard time physically.

People are quite different in their birth recovery though, s it working for me says nothing about it working for others. I'm very glad I didn't have to and the lack of maternity leave and universal health care in the US is disgraceful.

When I was pregnant with my first, I'm pretty sure it was illegal in the UK to return to work within the 2 weeks after birth.

After the first, I would never have been able to return in that timescale, I was still in pain from stitches and trying to establish breastfeeding. I had a terrible birth, shoulder dystocia, really quite traumatic.

Second was easier, and I was up on my feet much more quickly. Easier to breastfeed second time around, but even so, I'd have struggled to return to work within days/weeks. Thank god I didn't have to.

I couldn't get my head around this either, talking to friends who had given birth in the US. In my friendship group, 6 weeks off seemed the norm with one who went to eight weeks with a prem baby and one who went back at three weeks because she thought she would lose her job if she didn't. I think I recall correctly that technically it wasn't even maternity leave, it was sick leave

They were astounded at the idea of 6 months off - but also, without an exception, they had carried on breastfeeding for far longer than my comparable group of UK friends (I guess you establish a routine of expressing early on and just keep going?), whilst their DHs were far more involved in the household and the DC than my comparators (I guess men have to step up and do it whilst their DWs are adjusting to going back to work after a baby and they never get into a routine where DW does it all whilst at home with the baby?)

In TX you get 6wks for vaginal and 8wks for CS, part paid through short term disability. You can take 12 weeks off without losing your job. I’d imagine lower skilled positions don’t have the payments though.

Also depends on your company, the neighbour works for a French engineering company in the US who introduced much better conditions for mat leave, almost as good as the UK, and for the first 5yrs of child’s life she got something like 2 weeks paid a year to deal with child sickness and appts.

Another neighbour went back at 12 wks but her eng firm has an on-site nursery and she could go and breastfeed throughout the day. Much improved from when she had her first (10yrs ago) and she had to pump for him after going back to work while his grandma looked after him. She has a 90minute commute just now, they’re thinking of moving closer to the office.

Boom All of my friends with twins were signed off with disability by the doctor for 16 weeks or 8 weeks from when the babies came home from NiCU.

The US doesn't have maternity leave because they use 'disability' to cover it. Giving birth is a medical event and doing it in this framework gives employees and employers the necessary protections. As a business owner with women working on the shop floor trust me when I say DH, as an owner, doesn't want a pregnant employee or a new mother at risk. If they aren't ready to return to work they should be on medical leave. If they are ready for work, DH will discuss the work most suitable for them. We have only had two pregnancies and both times the women were moved to desk jobs as soon as they told us they were pregnant and return to the shop floor when they are getting enough sleep. One woman was fine after 7 months and the other was fine after 15 months. The vast majority of employers operate like we do. The media like to report the extremes.

So does this lead to a lot of women just leaving work? Either because they can't cope with leaving the baby at that stage (though they may well have wanted to after a year) or because of price of childcare? Is there a movement to change this or is it just accepted? In the UK I think we usually look to Scandinavian countries for good examples of parental leave. That must seem like a dream to mothers in USA (I'm assuming no shared parental leave!)

wimple You are required to provide a room for pumping. We put together a room for our two women and bought them an extra pump so they wouldn't have to carry it between work and home.

prancing DH is Danish and works for a Danish employer while also running his own business. He is the global diversity officer because there isn't a female senior enough to take the position and force change. He is making waves by having the conversation with HQ about promotion of women in sales and marketing. He wants to start the push there rather than in HR and finance.

He hired 30 trainee saleswomen and travel is required. He set policy for any female sales person, trainee or otherwise, could choose to transfer to domestic sales until they were ready to travel. Four years into the program the first group of female trainees are pregnant and the choice is there to transfer to the domestic sales group. Some have taken it others haven't. What is interesting to me is that the women who haven't transferred to the domestic division also took a much shorter leave of approx 6 months. It's created a perception issue which DH is now trying to manage. Just because you move to the domestic division doesn't mean you are taking a back seat in your career.

Taking a year off is not good for anyone's career. Danish women who do this suffer.

All depends on how the birth goes.

DD1, gruesome Keillands Rotation Forceps birth and I couldn't walk for a month afterwards - never mind work. I was totally traumatised by this birth and genuinely believe I had PTDS after this labour. I had flash backs of the labour right up till the birth of DD2 two years later. I felt pure terror when I discovered I was pregnant with DD2. I did go back to work because we needed the money and I had to, but she was six months old before I was able to.

DD2 labour I was in total denial. Refused to go to hospital until I couldn't hold on any longer. Refused to get out of the bath once I got to the ward. My waters broke while I was in bed in the ward because I wouldn't let my DH call the midwife to come and check on me. I was 10 cms before I'd even got to the delivery suite. They got me to the delivery suite literally minutes before DD2 was born without a single push. She literally slid out. No pain killers, no gas and air. Nothing. I could not believe how easy it was. We were in Tesco's 3 hours later doing a food shop. I was on a total high, really buzzing and I was warned that after the initial euphoria I would feel low.
I didn't. I went back to work when she was 3 weeks old. If all births were like that the world would be full.

I nearly died after DD3 was born and I spent nearly a month in hospital due to complications associated with giving birth. I never went back to work after this. She is nearly 18 (years) and I'm still not well enough to work.

You really can't judge. All labours are different and recovery afterwards is never the same.

Depends on how the birth was. I had to go back after two weeks to finish a project. Physically it was fine. Emotionally not so much.

That's it - disability leave (not medical leave, or maternity leave), Want2

UK employers are also supposed to provide a room for pumping - I looked at the one at my office before I went on mat leave and cried: a basement room with no natural light, a single plastic chair and fridge that made an irritating buzzing noise... I never used it, and I pity any woman who ever needed to

Yes but realize disability leave is what is used to facilitate money going to the mother out of work because they are on medical leave. You have short and long term leave. The benefits paid vary by state.

It's a different system to the UK. It's hard to compare them because the starting point of considering the birth of a baby to leave the mother disabled in the US. In the UK the starting point isn't disability.

Pump rooms here have generally been nice. Some women do have to pump in the bathroom but there are many more women in senior roles in the workplace who don't accept this as being ok. My sister didn't have a pump room so senior female manager made sure Hr got her an office with a solid door and wall. She could carry on with work and pump. It was very helpful in keeping limiting the amount of time spent away from her work.

I gave birth in the US three years ago or so and will be again in the summer. Last time I got 12 weeks technically unpaid, although I was required to use all the sick leave and vacation time I had to cover as much of the 12 weeks as possible. So that was about 5 weeks covered. I also had short-term disability insurance through work which paid out the equivalent of about 3 weeks income and the payment wasn't taxable. I therefore only had about 4 weeks without pay. As DS didn't turn up until 3 weeks in, he was 9 weeks when I went back to work. Very hard work to be full time and getting up in the night, but no alternative available.

This time I'm getting 3 months on full pay and will stay in work if possible until 40/41 weeks assuming the baby hasn't turned up before then. DH does half the childcaring/wifework.

One possibly unpopular opinion I have as someone who's lived in Britain and the US is that while lengthy maternity leaves is undoubtedly good for babies it has distinct disadvantages for mothers/women. It sets up a dynamic of the childrearing/house being the women's job because she's there for months on end and makes her paid employment seem less important as she may be taking multiple years out of the workplace. So it only seems natural for her to continue to deprioritise her career and for the man to deprioritise looking after his own children.

I honestly think the short leaves, which as previous poster have said are couched as disability or medical leave rather than maternity leave and therefore can be given to anyone in medical need, reduce discrimination against women in the workplace. Clearly they are not without problems though.

Many societies women have no choice... And they have gruelling lives compared to ours, maybe we are a bit soft?

Its the US though, supposedly the richest country in the world, self proclaimed leader of the free world

Its fucking barbaric is what it is, a misogynistic disgrace.

Apart from the physical side of it, what I don't get is how they are affording it. Even day care for babies 6-12 months is eye wateringling expensive, which makes sense because the ratio is something like 1 carer/2 babies. I can't imagine the cost for a 2 week old, nor have I ever seen a day care that accepted that age. If you are a CEO then maybe, but a low income earner?

I don't live in the USA though, maybe it's different there.

One possibly unpopular opinion I have as someone who's lived in Britain and the US is that while lengthy maternity leaves is undoubtedly good for babies it has distinct disadvantages for mothers/women. It sets up a dynamic of the childrearing/house being the women's job because she's there for months on end and makes her paid employment seem less important as she may be taking multiple years out of the workplace. So it only seems natural for her to continue to deprioritise her career and for the man to deprioritise looking after his own children.

It describes the situation perfectly. But what is the solution? Many mothers dont want shorter leaves but equally dont want their careers to be automatically devalued as a result of taking their legal allowance of leave.

Its fucking barbaric is what it is, a misogynistic disgrace.

I couldn't agree more. Just awful for women and even worse for babies. As someone mentioned earlier, what about the fourth trimester? So thankful I don't live in the US.

I don't know if I agree with you on that. Working here in the Us, I have a much stronger career because leave is so much shorter and care for DC starts as standard from a much earlier age. In the UK you would be hard pressed to find a nursery that would take a baby at 6 weeks. Here there are plenty of daycares that accept babies at 6 weeks.

Going back to work at 8 weeks opened doors for my career that I never thought would open. It sent a very loud message to everyone that I was extremely serious about my career. I also came through this experience questioning why this was so impactful and have used my experience to challenge this perception.

I have a much stronger career because leave is so much shorter and care for DC starts as standard from a much earlier age. In the UK you would be hard pressed to find a nursery that would take a baby at 6 weeks. Here there are plenty of daycares that accept babies at 6 weeks

I'm very glad you can't find a daycare for a newborn baby. As I said, barbaric. Women all over Europe have great careers as well as great maternity leave, and America is full of women on min wage leaving their newborns, so lets not pretend that no maternity leave equals great career move.

Really they have just as good careers in Europe. I'm 37 and I was promoted this year to the CFO of the subsidiary company of my employer. I would never have accomplished this while having 3 DC at 31, 32 and 36 in the UK or elsewhere in Europe.

I'm managing the move to our new premises. I love the fact that I'm not the only woman in the room. I love that there are female contractors doing electrical, plumbing and decorating work. There are also women in senior positions with building management that I have come across. In the UK I'm managing the same process and it's a sea of men.

Yes, really. Are you actually questioning whether women have good jobs in the whole of Europe?

There's still an pay gap between men and women in the US though, isn't there? Even with the appalling maternity provision.

I think the European way is right - it gives women the choice.