New moms need better maternity leave policies

Melissa Dreuth, chief of staff to the CEO and chief people officer at financial planning and analysis cloud platform provider Planful, is no stranger to the pressures new mothers face in the office.

“At my past company, there was this underlying pressure that, as a working mom you couldn't be vulnerable at all,” she says. “For me, that meant working up until my due date — my water broke during a training session in the office.”

Keeping her past experience in mind, Dreuth recently spearheaded the expansion of Planful’s maternity leave policy. The program provides new moms with a customizable $500 food stipend, applicable to services such as DoorDash and UberEats, and a three-month diaper supply, in addition to their maternity leave. Upon their return, parents are eligible for an 'Ease Back Program' with the option of reduced work hours for the first three months after returning to work.

Both programs are also inclusive to all family types such as adoptive and foster parents.

Read more: How PwC is helping working mothers get through COVID

“We see these young parents or first-time parents and it's just such a nice community that we're trying to create,” Dreuth says. “It's going to be a life changing experience for [them] but we want to be able to support them.”

Throughout the pandemic, mothers have suffered more than any other demographic — nearly three million women were reported to have left the workforce completely since February 2020, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of those women, 22% were Black mothers, 20% were Asian mothers and 19% were Hispanic mothers, according to a study by WerkLabs and The Mom Project, a digital career community.

“At my past company, there was this underlying pressure that, as a working mom you couldn't be vulnerable at all,” says Melissa Dreuth (above), chief of staff to the CEO and chief people officer at Planful. “For me, that meant working up until my due date — my water broke during a training session in the office.”

On top of being more susceptible to job loss, mental health declines have also been prevalent among working moms. Sixty-eight percent of working mothers have sought mental health treatment during the pandemic, a survey by SilverCloud Health found. This is compared to 47% percent of women without children, according to KFF Health Tracking Polls.

“In everything that you do you have to lead with an empathy approach,” Dreuth says. “You have to think about how you can make that individual becoming a parent feel comfortable enough they can be open with their manager and with their company about the needs that they have.”

Read more: Black and LatinX mothers falling off the career track during COVID

Planful’s current maternity leave includes a three month leave for moms and a six week leave for dads, both paid at 100% the individual’s salary. Since the pandemic, more companies have been building out their resources to benefit working parents offering everything from virtual childcare to paid sabbaticals.

The U.S. is the only country among 41 nations that does not have a mandated paid leave program for new parents, according to data from the Pew Research Center. Despite the current strides being made towards a more equitable workplace for women, there are still steps to be made.

“[Better maternity leave benefits] has to be table stakes,” Dreuth says. “There's no way you can grow a company and have a diverse talent pool if you aren't thinking of everything that is making that talent pool diverse in itself.”