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Subjects

Parental leave, maternity leave, FMLA, postpartum, bonding, trauma, The United States

Abstract

In the United States, the lack of availability and support around maternity leave results in mothers rushing back to the workforce soon after childbirth. Topics such as breastfeeding, physical trauma, postpartum depression, and working while in the postpartum period, all pile together to paint a picture of what it means to be a new mother in America. Through the use of qualitative data and academic sources, the article's findings conclude that health and bonding between the mother and baby are interconnected. The rush to begin work again also affects all aspects of one's health, often beyond the six to eight weeks of postpartum. In order to make changes within our government, our society as a whole should understand what women and infants are truly going through during these initial phases of postpartum and life itself. One can hope that the betterment of parental leave laws in America can result in the betterment of society.

DOI

10.15760/anthos.2023.12.1.10

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/40348

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