- cross-posted to:
- austin
- cross-posted to:
- austin
On May 7, after an induction and 15 hours of intense labor, Andres gave birth to a stillborn baby girl. The baby weighed 8 pounds and 13 ounces.
[…]
Andres was told that maternity leave does not apply to people in her situation, but instead is used for people who “give birth and care for a healthy newborn baby.”
It says she ended up taking many weeks off through short term disability, which is honestly how most employers in the US handle time off after the birth of a child anyway. That COA offers maternity leave at all is pretty good for a municipal employer in Texas. Not to be rude about it, but the purpose of parental leave is definitely to give parents time to be with their newborn. FMLA and short term disability are the avenues for anyone experiencing grief/loss/mental health issues, whether it’s due to the death of a newborn, an older child, a partner isn’t particularly relevant to the organization granting leave
FMLA is unpaid typically. Short term disability also isn’t full pay I think it’s 50-60%. From what I’ve seen, family leave is fully paid time off. So… You get fucked. Bereavement exists but most employers don’t offer it nor is it required federally. Apart from that the time you get away isn’t much compared to family leave. Not enough to have your fucking body recover from still born birth.
People’s bodies need to recover from all sorts of things all the time, it doesn’t make sense how this would be treated much differently from a or other surgery or medical or mental health issues from a leave standpoint. COA pays out 70% of salary for short-term disability
That’s exactly what I thought when I read the article. She shouldn’t get maternity leave, she should get bereavement leave. They are not the same thing.
Part of the point maternity leave is to allow time to physically recover from having your body ripped open. The baby being stillborn doesn’t make the birthing process any less horrifically damaging to the body.
Maternity and paternity leave both exist to allow new parents protected time to bond with and attend to their newborn. That time can certainly be used to recover physically, but there are many other medical situations that involve people’s bodies being ripped open in much worse ways, there are medical leave and disability leave for that