Maternity Leave

My brother and sister-in-law, who are living in Germany for a year, recently learned about maternity and paternity benefits in one of their German language classes. After they described the generous leave policies, it made me think about American maternity leave. There are quite a few differences!

The U.S. Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 states that new moms can take 3 months off with no pay and have their position and benefits status held for them. Dads can also make use of this leave policy, but I think this is rare. Prior to passage of this bill in 1993, leave policies were entirely at the employer's discretion.

If you look through Wikipedia's summary of countries' leave policies, the U.S. and Swaziland are the only two countries that do not offer some amount of paid leave time! Many countries also mandate the option of taking more than 3 months off.

I know that paid leave and extended periods of leave have economic costs and productivity implications. However, there are definitely costs associated with limited leave, such as lesser bonding time with your newborn, less time to establish and continue breastfeeding, not to mention the cost of extra child care.

At our final childbirth class, we all shared our plans for after baby's arrival. I was surprised and impressed that about half of the women said they were not going back to work at all. The rest of us said we'd be starting work again after a period ranging from six weeks to one year. There was one dad (a grad student at Princeton) who was planning to take a semester of paternity leave.

I would definitely support more generous family leave policies. I especially think fathers could benefit - they should be able to get a taste of life at home with Baby without having to worry about job security or loss of pay.

Cord Blood Banking

I had been going back and forth on cord blood banking, but now I feel that I have a pretty good handle on it. Cord blood is an excellent source of stem cells, and with the current research that's happening, there's a good chance those stem cells could come in handy some day to treat diseases. As with any relatively new medical advancement, though, it sounds a lot more simple than it is.

If you're having a baby, the first thing you'll get in the mail are flyers from ViaCord and other private cord blood banks. Their brochures say that there are currently over 70 diseases that are treatable with cord blood, such as leukemia and certain blood disorders. However, if you log onto their websites (I'm using ViaCord as an example), you'll find that the collection fee is around $2,000, and there is an annual $125 storage fee for your baby's cord blood.

That sounded pretty expensive to me and my husband. Then, we read some articles that affirmed that the expense is probably not necessary. This article from BabyCenter.com (link) makes some interesting points, including that "most people have a better chance of finding a stem cell match in the public cord blood system than in their own family."

We also figured that if the benefits really outweighed the costs of private cord blood banking, insurance companies would probably cover some of the cost.

But the idea of public cord blood banks sounded intriguing. These banks are sort of like public blood donation centers, except storing cord blood is less common and more expensive an endeavor. Some hospitals are set up to collect cord blood for public banks, but unfortunately ours is not.

This week we saw an article in Time Magazine (article, video) about kits that are available for hospitals that aren't set up to collect and transport cord blood on their own. An expectant mother can request a kit, take it in for collection after the baby's been delivered, and the specimen gets shipped to the cord blood bank. There is no cost to the mother.

This sounded like a great idea, but unfortunately I was too far along in the pregnancy to take advantage of it. Most public cord blood banks require enrollment between 28 and 34 weeks of pregnancy so that maternal blood tests can be completed prior to delivery.

I was disappointed that I had missed the opportunity to donate the baby's cord blood to a public bank. I didn't like thinking of wasting those potentially life-saving stem cells. However, I spoke with my midwife, and she gave me some more good information. She said that if you don't clamp the cord right away and allow it to continue pulsating after birth (which we had been planning to do), nearly all of the cord blood travels back into the baby's system. Thus, there is no cord blood left to collect.

So we feel good that our baby will be benefiting from his cord blood; it won't be wasted. Maybe with our next child, we'll look into public banking. By then, there might be more information on how useful these stem cells are, and perhaps more hospitals will be set up for public cord blood donations.