If you’re pregnant and working right now…firstly, congratulations!
It’s an exciting time for mums and dads, which involves a lot of thinking ahead and planning for the arrival of your new little bundle.
If you’re a working parent, part of that planning might involve finding out what paid parental leave (PPL) you are entitled to when the baby comes.
Because that will no doubt impact the hard choice you may have ahead of you. It’s a choice faced by most working mums across Australia every time they have a baby – can I afford to spend some time at home with my baby after the birth, or will I have to return to work as early as possible and miss out on time with my newborn?
You probably have absolutely no idea how to answer this right now. And I’d be willing to predict it’s not for a lack of trying. Don’t worry – you’re not really bad at Google search. And you’re not the only one feeling frustrated.
Basically it’s not you, it’s the Government. They’ve been up and down and back and forth and twisted themselves inside out on what they want to do with paid parental leave. And they’ve treated working mums pretty poorly along the way.
The whole thing has left a bad taste in the mouth of anyone following the debate closely.
And the end result is parents like you being left in absolute limbo on paid parental leave in Australia.
Women in Australia who are pregnant right now and due from July onwards, have absolutely no idea what paid parental leave scheme they will have access to when their baby is born.
Top Comments
As someone due July 19th it's incredibly frustrating. Workplaces won't accept a wait and see. We need to plan life. More annoying is having a planned c-sect... Two weeks earlier. July 5th is so close to Jube it's infuriating.
I think I want a planned c-sect. I thought ti was usually 1 week pre-due date. Can I please ask why you're scheduled 2 weeks before? I am just trying to understand how it works... am new to all this! Thanks.
Different hospitals and care providers have different policies. You want to strike a balance between prematurity and the woman going into labour before the caesarean actually happens. So some care providers will schedule it to happen at 37 weeks on the dot. 37 weeks is the earliest a baby can be considered 'term', and statistically it offers the least risk that the mother will go into labour. It's basically personal preference, or in accordance with the policies of the hospital involved.
Having said that, it does happen every single day that a woman will go into labour before her planned caeser date - at the hospital I worked at we called them 'backdoor caesers', there would be probably two every day.
I guess you could just cater for 18 weeks maternity leave and then if you recieve more its a nice surprise