Countries Around The World Beat The U.S. On Paid Parental Leave
Physically the recovery of having a child is huge," Mellema says. "It took, for me, months." She says it also gave her time to care for her new son at his most vulnerable stage. "The financial support was essential to getting us through that year and giving me that time with him," Mellema says.
"Had I not have had it, I probably would have had to go back to work fairly quickly after I had him, which I can't even imagine doing, because my experience is just having that year with him was so important."
Heymann says paid parental leave policies have a significant impact on infant and maternal health. "So there are powerful, long-term studies showing that providing paid maternity leave, for example, lowers infant mortality," she says.
"Beyond this, we know that women who have sufficient paid maternity leave are much more likely to breastfeed, and breastfeeding lowers the risk of all sorts of infectious diseases, it increases and improves cognitive outcomes, and it benefits the woman's health."