Over 2 million women are placed on bed rest a year, some are confined for a few weeks but others spend months in bed. The current FMLA provides unpaid leave for 12 wks, leaving families to choose between the health of their unborn child and their finances. If a woman is placed on strict bed rest at week 20 of her pregnancy, she still has 20 wks of pregnancy and at least 6 wks of recovery time after the birth. How can we ask a woman to risk the baby's health? How is her family to pay their bills, buy food, etc? Short-term and long-term disability options vary across the country, there needs to be a federal policy without room for interpretation. Why is it that other countries offer paid maternity leave but we don't, yet we there are mandates to breast feed in some states?
This is historical material “frozen in time”. The website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work.
