Maternity Leave Benefits
Paid maternity leave in the United States
I am a single mother of two. During my last month of pregnancy, I started doing extra jobs to save up money for upcoming rent for when I would have to stop working. I had to work up until past my due date just to know that my kids and I would be taken care of after I have the baby. Something is wrong with that. Mothers and their infants grow healthier when allowed time to rest before and after birth without having to worry financially. Almost all countries provide direct financial support for parents during at least part of the protected leave. Most countries provide 3 months to 1 year of full-time paid leave. The United States is one of the only countries among others that do not guarantee some …show more content…
According to a study by The Economic Policy Institute, the United States ranks lowest in terms of maternity leave. The United States provides the fewest mandated maternity leave benefits in both length of leave and amount of paid time off. According to research by economists Sara Markowitz and Pinka Chatterji and published in 2008 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, women who return to work soon after the birth of a child are more likely to get depressed than other mothers. The lack of time spent together hurts mothers ' relationships with their infants. Infancy is a time of bonding and trust. Without the mother-baby bonding time, the infant doesn’t create that bonding relationship that is needed in the child’s life. I had found that infants whose mothers had 12 weeks of maternity leave or fewer had lower cognitive test scores and higher rates of behavior problems at age four than children whose mothers had longer leaves. Longer paid maternity leaves are also linked to lower infant and child mortality. Infants need bonding time to create an attachment. An infant will not survive if he or she does not receive the love and attention from his or her caregiver. A scientist long ago tired to see what language a child would speak if he had never heard language before. In his discovery, he had found that all of the infants died and became malnourished. Longer paid maternity leaves benefit for an overall healthier
I am a single mother of two. During my last month of pregnancy, I started doing extra jobs to save up money for upcoming rent for when I would have to stop working. I had to work up until past my due date just to know that my kids and I would be taken care of after I have the baby. Something is wrong with that. Mothers and their infants grow healthier when allowed time to rest before and after birth without having to worry financially. Almost all countries provide direct financial support for parents during at least part of the protected leave. Most countries provide 3 months to 1 year of full-time paid leave. The United States is one of the only countries among others that do not guarantee some …show more content…
According to a study by The Economic Policy Institute, the United States ranks lowest in terms of maternity leave. The United States provides the fewest mandated maternity leave benefits in both length of leave and amount of paid time off. According to research by economists Sara Markowitz and Pinka Chatterji and published in 2008 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, women who return to work soon after the birth of a child are more likely to get depressed than other mothers. The lack of time spent together hurts mothers ' relationships with their infants. Infancy is a time of bonding and trust. Without the mother-baby bonding time, the infant doesn’t create that bonding relationship that is needed in the child’s life. I had found that infants whose mothers had 12 weeks of maternity leave or fewer had lower cognitive test scores and higher rates of behavior problems at age four than children whose mothers had longer leaves. Longer paid maternity leaves are also linked to lower infant and child mortality. Infants need bonding time to create an attachment. An infant will not survive if he or she does not receive the love and attention from his or her caregiver. A scientist long ago tired to see what language a child would speak if he had never heard language before. In his discovery, he had found that all of the infants died and became malnourished. Longer paid maternity leaves benefit for an overall healthier