How Maternity Leave Can Enhance A Postpartum Mother’S Health?

Paid maternity leave is a crucial aspect of maternal and infant health, promoting physical and mental well-being. Studies have shown that adequate paid leave has numerous benefits for the mother, baby, and the entire family, including decreased rehospitalization rates for both mothers. Maternity leave can lead to small increases in birth weight and decreases the likelihood of intimate partner violence. Mothers who receive paid time off after giving birth fare better, with a 51 decrease in the risk of rehospitalization.

Maternal leave is also linked to lower infant and child mortality rates, increased breastfeeding initiation and duration, better mother-child interactions, and beneficial impact on infant attachment. Short family leave length (less than 12 weeks of total leave after childbirth, less than 8 weeks of paid leave) may affect mental and physical health. New mothers entitled to paid maternity leave beyond a few weeks’ duration are more likely to have better mental and physical health, in turn, their offspring have a slightly reduced likelihood of infant death and an increased chance of secure maternal attachment, breastfeeding, and keeping up to date with vaccinations.

Longer paid leave significantly increases breastfeeding initiation and duration, which has numerous benefits for moms and babies, including improving the function of the digestive and immune system of the child, and reducing the risk of breast and ovarian cancer, diabetes, and obesity for the mother. Furthermore, mothers who took more than 13 weeks of paid leave experienced significantly less psychological distress.

Maternity leave has been shown to lead to small increases in birth weight, decreases in the likelihood of a premature birth, and substantial decreases in infant mortality. Longer maternity leave lengths are associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms and a lower probability of depression. Parental leave may help alleviate mental health symptoms by preventing or reducing stress associated with childbirth and infancy. A mother’s postpartum health could be improved if the other parent has flexible paid leave, with some studies finding decreases in depressive symptoms among mothers with longer leave, paid or unpaid.