Time Off Work and the Postpartum Health of Employed Women

Abstract

Findings suggest employed women experience problems in well-being at approximately seven months postpartum. Variables associated with improved health include: longer maternity leaves, fewer prenatal mental health symptoms, fewer concurrent physical symptoms, more sleep, increased social support, increased job satisfaction, less physical exertion on the job, fewer infant symptoms, and less difficulty arranging child care.

Length of maternity leave and health of mother and child – a review

“…General mental health (depression, anxiety, general positive affect, life satisfaction) at 7 and 9-12 months after childbirth was improved in women with maternity leaves beyond 15 weeks and 24 weeks respectively, when compared to leaves of below 9 weeks (McGovern et al 1997;Gjerdingen & Chaloner 1994). A positive association with vitality and role function was seen for maternity leaves beyond 12 and 20 weeks, respectively (McGovern et al 1997). No association was found between the length of maternity leave and the level of depressive symptoms and mental health respectively, when comparing women with maternity leaves of 6 versus 6-8 weeks (Chatterji & Markowitz 2004), and when comparing women with leaves below 9 versus 9-24 weeks (Gjerdingen & Chaloner 1994).…”

“…The size of the study populations ranges from 141 to 1762 women. Recruitment of women was done by newspaper advertisement (Killien et al 2001), using birth certifi cates (McGovern et al 1997), using hospital records (Hyde et al 1995;Gjerdingen & Chaloner 1994;Romito et al 1994;Clark et al 1997), or using a continental mail panel (Roe et al 1999). For some papers, study populations were recruited from ongoing studies (Chatterji & Markowitz 2004;Visness & Kennedy 1997) (Hyde et al 1995: Clark et al 1997; Infant Feeding Practices Study IFPS (Roe et al 1999); Arthur et al (2003), Killien et al (2001)).…”

“…In longitudinal studies, they had to have been in paid work during pregnancy and intending to take up paid work again after childbirth. Paid work was defi ned -in longitudinal studies -as remunerated work at any time during pregnancy (Killien et al 2001), or as remunerated work at least 20 h per week (McGovern et al 1997). Data collection was performed retrospectively in some studies, ranging from an average of 7 months up to 3 years after delivery in cross-sectional studies.…”

“…Among women with low work rewards, lower levels of anger were observed if maternity leave lasted 12 weeks in comparison to a length of less than 6 weeks (Hyde et al 1995). General mental health (depression, anxiety, general positive affect, life satisfaction) at 7 and 9-12 months after childbirth was improved in women with maternity leaves beyond 15 weeks and 24 weeks respectively, when compared to leaves of below 9 weeks (McGovern et al 1997;Gjerdingen & Chaloner 1994). A positive association with vitality and role function was seen for maternity leaves beyond 12 and 20 weeks, respectively (McGovern et al 1997).…”

Parental leave and child health

“…The lack of robustness may be due to small sample sizes or limitations in the methodological approach and imply that the findings should be interpreted cautiously. 4 Second, McGovern et al (1997) indicate that time off work has nonlinear effects on the postpartum health of mothers, as measured by mental health, vitality, and role function. Specifically, short-to-moderate periods away from the job (up to 12 to 20 weeks) are associated with worse health, whereas the reverse is true for longer absences.…”