Wendy... you make some interesting points.  Holland is probably one of the
best and safest places to have a baby.  If I ever decide to go to midwifery
school, I would love to travel to Holland and meet/work with some of the
midwives there.

As for maternity leave.  I wanted to clear up something here.  Most people
have their jobs guaranteed (though not all) for a period of weeks or months
after their babies are born.  However, often times it is NOT paid.  I am
living proof.

I am a RN in a large hospital.  When I was pregnant with my first baby, I
was so sick that I had exhausted all of my sick leave time while pregnant.
I then went on leave at about 34 weeks and used up what little vacation time
I had before the baby was even born.  I had to mortgage my home in order
have enough money to survive after his birth and I was forced to go back to
work at only 8 weeks postpartum.  I was really afraid of how that would
affect breastfeeding; thankfully, I was fine.  So my "maternity leave" was
not paid at all.  My company paid NOTHING for that... I was forced to use
any sick leave or vacation time (which was all gone by his birth) and then I
was on my own.  I got pregnant with my second child just 8 months after my
first was born.  Again, I had no bank of time saved up and had to borrow
against the house again.

Thankfully, the breastfeeding wasn't affected with that child either!

Christina Harris, RN
Seattle, WA

On 2/23/07, Wendy Blumfield <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> For such developed wealthy countries this is incomprehensible.
> Scandinavia and Holland were top.
> Has anyone made the connection that in Holland and Scandinavia, paid
> maternity leave stretches into years not months with options for the dads to
> share, while the UK allows three months and the USA a mere six weeks.

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET email list is powered by LISTSERV (R).
There is only one LISTSERV. To learn more, visit:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html