The current regulations concerning maternity leave do not suit most women, according to a pilot study of maternity in the workplace.
New Mothers at Work is a study carried out by the ISIS research group in Trinity College, headed by Dr Jo Murphy-Lawless, for the Employment Equality Agency. It involved 30 women in three large organisations, a financial services provider, an IT company and a specialist manufacturing company. All the women had given birth since 1994, the year in which the Maternity Protection Act, 1994, came into operation.
This and previous Acts relating to maternity guarantee 14 weeks' maternity leave with State benefit and an optional additional four unpaid weeks, the right to return to work after childbirth, the right not to be dismissed for any reason related to the pregnancy, and a variety of entitlements related to the health and safety of the mother during pregnancy.
The study found that almost half the mothers did not reveal the true date of their expected delivery because they wished to adjust their maternity leave to maximise the time they spent at home with the baby. They did so to get around the legal requirement to take four weeks off before the birth.
Asked to outline the pattern of maternity leave they would like, 14 of the 30 women said they would prefer two weeks before and 12 after the birth; three expressed a preference for three weeks before birth and 11 weeks after; and only three were satisfied with the existing provision of four weeks' leave before and 10 after the birth.
More than half the women (17) asked for an adjustment of their working hours to deal with symptoms of pregnancy or medical appointments; 12 needed adjustment of their work duties.
Five of these 12 were advised by their medical team to adjust their duties, but only three sought such changes from their managers. "It is worrying that on the heels of medical advice two women still did not feel able to ask their managers for changes," the report comments.
A general theme of the report is that women at work are "under intense pressure to do pregnancy well, to carry on as if they are not pregnant," Dr Murphy-Lawless said at the presentation of the report yesterday. "Our samples felt that pregnancy left them with something to prove, otherwise they would lose out in the promotion stakes."
Mr Brian Merriman, assistant chief executive of the EEA, said the agency received about 2,500 inquiries annually about issues relating to maternity, 10 times as many as related to sexual harassment.