Human Resource Blog

Illinois Maternity Leave

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I’d like to institute a company policy that all pregnant women have to start maternity leave 1 month before their due date, and end it 2 months after their due date. Can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t do this?

You would be violating federal law. The mother and doctor, not you the employer, choose the timing of the leave, according to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1986.

Some women choose to continue working up to a date as close as possible to the birth date, to allow for more leave after the birth. That gives them more time to bond with the newborn child. In other cases, pregnancy complications require that a mother-to-be begin her leave well before the birth. Each case is different.

The FMLA guarantees an employee as much as 12 weeks of unpaid leave around the birth of a child. The leave, by the way, is job-protected.

There is another law that applies to pregnant employees. It’s called the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), a part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

In the case of the PDA, however, the woman is guaranteed the right to return to the job as soon after the birth as she wishes, as long as she is physically capable. You, as her employer, may require a doctor’s statement certifying that she is physically able to return to the job.

The PDA applies to any workplace with 15 or more workers. The FMLA applies to any employer with 50 or more workers, although some states have expanded it to include smaller firms.

Remember, though, that if a worker wants to return to work just three days after the birth of her child, and she cannot produce a doctor’s release, you are entirely within your rights to demand it before she can return. With the doctor’s release, on the other hand, she may work as much as she wishes, either before or after the birth.

It may help you to know that doctors have developed general guidelines in this matter. They suggest that a woman take 6 weeks off after a normal delivery and 8 weeks after a caesarean section. However, these are only recommendations. JH