Pregnancy

Photo by PeachyApple

Last month, a Major General added pregnancy to his list of prohibitions. If you're an American solider in Iraq and you get pregnant (or get someone pregnant), you face punishment, including a court martial and jail time. The policy also applies to married soldiers who are in Iraq together.

Pregnant women face discrimination in the workplace. It's a fact. It's as bad as the state of our maternity leave.

The Miami Herald took note of the large number of women blogging about being fired from their job for being pregnant. I'm sure they were reading CafeMom.

And forget about trying to find a job when pregnant. It's hard enough to find a job when you're not right now.

Photo by JSVDP

I'll admit I've been in the dark about maternity leave. It's not something I had to worry about until now and when my sister was on maternity leave two years ago, the company she worked for ending up laying her off during her leave. Long story, but she did get severance and was able to stay home with baby for four months until she found another job.

I had no idea that some employers do not have to offer maternity leave. And I've read many stories here on CafeMom and beyond about women losing their jobs because they need to take time off to give birth. I'm outraged.

I checked out maternity leave around the world. Did you know that in Italy, they offer five months of maternity leave at 80 percent of pay? Russia offers 140 days at full pay. I also heard that in Australia, moms on maternity leave have the option of taking a full year, all while maintaining job security.

Photo by dstny157

For those of you mamas who are planning on going back to work post-baby, maternity leave is definitely something you need to keep in mind and discuss with your employer. Here are some links that give you the 411 on maternity leave:

Did you know that only five countries in the world don't offer some sort of paid parental leave, and the United States is one of them? (We're joined by Australia, Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea.)

Meanwhile, female employees in the U.K. are entitled to 52 weeks of maternity leave, 39 of which are paid. And our neighbors to the north, Canadians, are welcome to take 35 weeks of leave, split between the parents as desired. This is on TOP of 15 weeks of paid leave for the mom.

Europe? You don't even want to know.

That's a picture of my daughter right around the time I had to go back to work after my maternity leave. I was lucky to have a full 12 paid weeks, because it's definitely not a given, but some moms don't take that much even if it's an option.

I just read a post on workitmom about a woman who's out on maternity leave -- but her baby's not here yet. She quit work ten days before her due date, and is wondering now how to fill the time before the baby arrives. Relax? Run a million errands? Do some last-minute cleaning/nesting?