New York Governor Backs Prenatal Leave for Pregnant Workers

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed expanding New York’s paid family leave law to include 40 hours of paid leave to attend prenatal medical appointments, which would make New York the first state to establish coverage for prenatal care.

Pregnant mothers who have access to regular prenatal medical visits are less likely to die in childbirth and their newborns are more likely to be healthy, Hochul’s office said in a statement.

We’ve gathered articles on the news from SHRM Online and other media outlets.

Providing Time for Prenatal Care

Hochul will introduce to the state Legislature a bill to provide 40 hours of paid time off before a child is born for the pregnant parent to attend prenatal medical appointments.

Hochul said she is also directing the state Health Department to launch a raft of initiatives aimed at cutting down on unnecessary cesarean section births, including oversight programs, financial incentives through Medicaid and a process to review physicians who seem to overuse C-sections.

(Adirondack Daily Enterprise)

Rising Maternal Mortality Rate

The paid leave proposal is part of Hochul’s six-point plan to improve maternal and neonatal health at a time when U.S. maternal mortality rates are growing with each generation and the country has fallen way behind other developed nations.

New York already offers four months of paid leave, which Hochul called the most expansive among the 50 states, but under current law, those benefits are unavailable until four weeks before birth.

(Reuters)

Racial Disparities in Maternal Mortality

The governor’s announcement comes as New York City tries to address troubling rates of life-threatening emergencies related to childbirth. The risks are especially stark for Black women in the city, who are nine times more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth than their white counterparts. Statewide, Black women are over four times more likely to die from childbirth-related complications, according to state data from 2016 to 2018.

Representatives for both the Senate and Assembly Democratic majorities said that maternal health was deeply important to their conferences and that they would be reviewing the governor’s proposals.

(The New York Times)

Federal Laws Protect Pregnant Workers

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, effective June 27, 2023, requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations for job applicants and employees with known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions.

The Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act, effective Dec. 29, 2022, expanded workplace lactation accommodations for nursing employees to include exempt employees.

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act was enacted in 1978, amending Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions.

(SHRM Online and SHRM Online)