Human Resource Blog

Pregnancy leave

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My daughter is an employee of the court systems in the State of Delaware. She is pregnant and due 6/29/08. If she has to stop working under doctor’s order due to pregnancy induced hypertension how will she be covered with short term disability? She currently has 294 hrs. of sick/vaction time. Will the additional 4 weeks prior to delivery reduce her FMLA from 12 weeks to 8 weeks after delivery?

If your daughter has to quit working due to a pregnancy-related disability then she will be covered – as long as the employer offers short-term disability benefits for employees who are not pregnant. Under PDA, the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act, employers must treat pregnancy disability just as they would any other disability.

The FMLA entitles employees to a total of 12 weeks of unpaid leave for pregnancy, childbirth and baby bonding. So if your daughter uses 4 weeks of leave for her pregnancy disability, she will only have 8 weeks left after the baby is born. This is one reason that many pregnant women work as long as they can.