Like any expecting couple, Brett Pipitone and his wife, Laura, knew that having a child would upend their daily routine. But no research or planning prepared them for their biggest challenge: postpartum depression.
“It was an incredibly stressful situation,” Brett said. After giving birth to their daughter in 2014, Laura found herself “wanting to disappear” and completely disengaged from her surroundings. She’d call Brett at work in tears, and he’d rush home to help. He wound up taking much more time away from his job as an aerospace engineer than he’d expected, without any idea of how he could fix things.
As many as 1 in 6 women suffer from postpartum depression and/or anxiety. In such cases, the partner who didn’t give birth relies on paternity leave or parental leave to be the primary caregiver and manage the household, a sharp contrast to social-media-worthy pictures of dads strolling with the Baby Bjorn, coffee in hand. When partners don’t have access to paid parental leave but need time to help at home, they may be forced to take unpaid time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act. FMLA provides job protections for eligible workers who take time off for their own illness or to care for a family member. Eligibility factors include the size of the company or an employee’s tenure, and people who work for small businesses or in high-turnover positions are often penalized. The nearly 40 percent of workers who do not have access to unpaid family leave are left in a drastic bind, potentially losing their jobs.
[For more of this story, written by Rebecca Gale, go to https://www.washingtonpost.com...52f0b9561_story.html]
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