+
A PERSONAL MESSAGE FROM UPWORTHY
We are a small, independent media company on a mission to share the best of humanity with the world.
If you think the work we do matters, pre-ordering a copy of our first book would make a huge difference in helping us succeed.
GOOD PEOPLE Book
upworthy

maternity leave

Parenting

New mom vents frustration over American maternity leave in comparison to the rest of the world

"The people who decided that it is okay to leave an infant at a daycare at 6 weeks old? Jail."

Anna Gantt|TikTok

New mom vents over American maternity leave.

Have you ever tried giving birth? It's not for the weak. In fact, the entire process leading up to birthing an entire human out of your body isn't for the weak. Being pregnant changes and stretches parts of your body you didn't know existed. Even the volume of blood that pumps through your heart increases.

Your joints loosen, your hips spread and for some reason, your nose and lips can spread, too. And even though your nose looks big enough to stick your fist into, you can't breathe through it efficiently. Pregnancy is a lot. But birth, whether vaginally or via cesarean is like running a marathon with little to no training. Then come the hormones, sleep deprivation and healing.

But if you're working in America when you happen to go through that life-changing experience, you can hang up any thoughts of having adequate time to heal and bond with your baby. In many instances, you've got six weeks—and those weeks may or may not be paid. (The U.S. is one of the only countries that doesn't federally guarantee paid maternity leave, and most states don't mandate paid maternity leave, either.)

Anna Gantt uploaded a video to TikTok expressing her frustration at America's maternity leave policies. In her video, Gantt is walking her dog and her newborn child in disbelief that new moms generally get six weeks of paid maternity leave in the United States when other countries get up to 18 months.

"I live in Georgia, in the United States, and it's not legal to separate a puppy or a kitten from its mother until they are 8 weeks old," Gantt vents. "So how, how is it okay to leave a human at 6 weeks old? My body is not even healed. I just now can go on a walk with my dog and my infant."

She makes some pretty good points. Humans who birth babies aren't cleared to return to normal light activities until a minimum of six weeks but it can be longer if you have complications. Maybe it's time for the United States to address its maternity leave issue.

Watch her entire video below:

@annavgantt

American maternity leave is actually insane…… because WHO decided six weeks was even close to acceptable for an infant and mom to be seperated? WTF #maternityleave #fyp #fypシ

From Your Site Articles
maternity leave
Family

New Zealand is giving bereavement leave from work to women who have miscarriages

via Pexels

A miscarriage can be an incredibly traumatizing event for a woman, but because they are relatively common, they aren't treated as seriously as they should be. According to the CDC, about 17% of American pregnancies end in miscarriage.

"Because it is medically common, the impact of miscarriage is often underestimated," Janet Jaffe, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the Center for Reproductive Psychology in San Diego said according to the American Psychological Association.

"But miscarriage is a traumatic loss, not only of the pregnancy but of a woman's sense of self and her hopes and dreams of the future. She has lost her 'reproductive story,' and it needs to be grieved," she continued.

A study from Britain found that about 15% of women who miscarry experience significant depression and/or anxiety for up to three years after the event.

However, the experience is treated by most as a routine health issue, forgetting the incredible emotional trauma that can come with a miscarriage. The loss of a potential child strikes at the very heart of what it means to be human. To simply pass it off as a routine medical event is extremely callous.

A new law recently passed in New Zealand aims to provide time to heal for those intimately affected by miscarriage.

New Zealand's parliament passed a new bill that gives women, their partners, and parents planning to have a child through adoption or surrogacy, three days of paid leave after a pregnancy loss. India is the only other country with such a law. It gives women six weeks of paid leave after a miscarriage or medical termination.

In the U.S., Reddit is the only employer that offers time off for a miscarriage. The tech company offers eight and a half weeks of fully paid leave for anyone who goes through a pregnancy loss — father or mother.

"The passing of this bill shows that once again New Zealand is leading the way for progressive and compassionate legislation, becoming only the second country in the world to provide leave for miscarriage and stillbirth," Ginny Andersen, the MP in charge of the bill, said in a statement.

"The bill will give women and their partners time to come to terms with their loss without having to tap into sick leave. Because their grief is not a sickness, it is a loss. And loss takes time."

During a 2018 interview with The Guardian, Andersen explained that miscarriages are a taboo subject in New Zealand and shouldn't be the reason for conflict between employee and employer.

"The lack of clarity has meant some women have been in the position of having to argue with their employer about whether they are entitled to leave because they have lost their unborn child," Andersen said. "A lot of women have had more than one miscarriage and it can be very traumatic and difficult if you are trying to hold down a job."

Let's hope that New Zealand's new law calls much-needed attention to the grief that parents experience after a miscarriage and inspires world leaders will take necessary steps to create an environment where parents can heal after such personal trauma.

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
parenting
More

3 moms recorded their first weeks home with a newborn. It got real — real quick.

When I was pregnant with my first baby, I didn't understand why people talked about the newborn period being so hard.

I mean, it's not like newborn babies are crawling around getting into things or arguing with you about which color cup they want. They eat, they sleep, and they poop. How hard could it be?

Then I had my first baby — and the world turned upside down.

Photo by Philippe Huguen/Getty Images.

Having a newborn is so much more than just snuggling with your sweet-smelling infant. There's the childbirth recovery, the hormone surges, the engorged breasts leaking all over the place, the crying (yours and the baby's), and the sleep deprivation — OMG, the sleep deprivation. It's used as a form of torture for a reason.

There's also the weighty realization that this tiny person's life is literally in your hands, and you have no real idea what you're doing. It's all-consuming.

Three moms recorded their first weeks home with their newborns — and nothing was held back.

Cortney, Melissa, and Dorian all had babies this year. Melissa had her second child (she also had a toddler at the time), and Cortney and Dorian were first-time moms. They each used home security cameras to candidly document the first few postpartum weeks and shared a bit about what life has been like with a newborn.

One mom slowly eased her just-gave-birth body onto the couch and said, "Aw, f*ck." Yep. I remember that feeling. And the sound of those newborn cries is enough to make any mom's gut clench with feeling.

Of course, there is an indescribable beauty and magic to newborn babies. If someone could figure out how to bottle that baby-head smell, they'd be billionaires. There's nothing softer or silkier than baby skin, and sometimes all you want to do is just sit and stare at their perfect faces.

But that's only a fraction of the story in those early weeks.

These moms shared what surprised them about having a newborn, and it's a powerful reminder of how hard it really can be.

"Having a newborn is not what I expected," Cortney tells me. "I knew it would be tiring, but I didn't realize how exhausted I would be. It's literally a 24/7 job with no breaks."

Dorian reiterates how exhausting that period can be. "The main thing that surprised me was how serious exhaustion could be," she says. "Especially in the first two weeks. It felt like sheer willpower to put one foot in front of the other and keep going because I was so tired."

[rebelmouse-image 19398111 dam="1" original_size="465x264" caption="Image via Canary/YouTube." expand=1]Image via Canary/YouTube.

Sleep deprivation is no joke, I'm telling you. And when you add "recovering from childbirth" to the mix, it's a miracle new moms function at all.

"I wish people understood how difficult it is," Melissa says. "Being pregnant, giving birth, and the aftermath is a lot. Not only do you have to figure out how to meet the needs of a baby, but you feel worn out."

New moms need support, and that starts with acknowledging how hard they're working and how valuable that work is.

Did you know that the U.S. is the only developed nation that doesn't guarantee paid maternity leave for new moms? The only one. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Meanwhile, 36 nations offer at least a year of paid leave for parents, and dozens more offer, at minimum, 14 weeks.

If we want our citizenry to be healthy and productive, we need to acknowledge that new mothers need time to recover from childbirth, tend to the needs of their babies, and adjust to a huge life change. New motherhood is hard — awesome and amazing, but hard. Let's all do what we can to support new moms as they adjust to their unexpectedly upside-down worlds.

From Your Site Articles
More

Larissa Waters' viral breastfeeding photo has an important message about motherhood.

This working mom's fight for a better world gets a boost from her new baby.

Think politics is filled with nothing but whining babies? Just wait until you see what's happening in Australia.

Queensland Sen. Larissa Waters just became the first woman to breastfeed on the floor of Australia's parliament. Thanks to a 2016 rule that gave the all-clear for moms to breast- and bottle-feed on the job, Waters made a bit of history when she brought 10-week-old Alia Joy to work this week.

She marked the occasion with a celebratory tweet.

The whole thing might seem kind of silly, but there's actually a really important message here.

"If we want more young women in Parliament, we must make the rules more family friendly to allow new mothers and new fathers to balance their parliamentary and parental duties," Waters said in November.

Worldwide, Waters isn't alone. She joins Icelandic member of parliament Unnur Brá Konráðsdóttir, Spanish politician Carolina Bescansa, and Italian politician and former member of European parliament Licia Ronzulli as mothers in politics who've brought their babies to the job.

Normalizing the act of breastfeeding (really folks, it shouldn't be that big of a deal) by making accommodations for new parents' hectic schedules and fighting for paid parental leave are both part of the fight for the more equal and welcoming world Waters wants. Sadly, some countries don't have paid maternal or paternal leave (most notably the U.S.), and there's still an unfortunate stigma and disgust surrounding breastfeeding (especially in public) that needs to stop.

Waters longs for the day when a mother feeding her child in public or at work isn't news.

"We need family-friendly and flexible workplaces for all so this isn't news anymore," she tweeted ahead of an interview with Sky News.

Announcing Alia's birth in an International Women's Day Facebook post back in March, Waters offered up a sweet note to her new daughter along with a mission statement about her purpose in motherhood and in politics.

What a fitting day to announce the arrival of my second daughter, Alia Joy! She has a head of hair like an 80s pop star...

Posted by Larissa Waters on Tuesday, March 7, 2017

"She is even more inspiration for continuing our work to address gender inequality and stem dangerous climate change. (And yes, if she's hungry, she will be breastfed in the Senate chamber)," she wrote, later adding, "Our public health system is excellent and must be fought for and protected! To all the awesome mums out there juggling everything — you are the real superheroes."

From Your Site Articles
Trending Stories