SHOW / EPISODE

Iceland's Maternity & Paternity Leave

13m | Jan 24, 2022

Maya - “ I read an article where it stated that Iceland is the third best place in the world to be a mother. Now I don't know about you but if you wanted to be a mother and heard that Iceland is probably one of the best places in the world to be one, wouldn't you look into it? Well luckily for you I decided to dive a little deeper into what is going on over there! 


Maya - “ Let's look at the fact that Iceland's maternity and paternity leave as of January 2021 will be extended to 12 months. Standard leave payments are 80% of your average income. There is also a law that requires the same benefits to the mother and father. Here in the United States maternity leave is regulated by US labor law. What this means is new mothers are required 12 weeks of unpaid leave annually and this goes for both the mother and the father, if they work for a company with 50 or more employees. If you are an employee of a company with less than 50 people there is no federal law requiring them to give you maternity leave. Okay, now just think about it, if anything happened or went wrong during your birth and the doctors said that you needed to take extra time off rest and focus on you and the baby. Although now instead of focusing on resting and your baby you have to figure out how to pay your bills because you are no longer getting paid. 


Maya - Finding out even the small differences that Iceland is doing can benefit many mothers here in the United States. As someone who is on a path to become a doctor/obgyn/midwife or doula and work with mothers information like this can easily be applied to practice in the years to come ” 


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Background info / Iceland conversation: 


Maya: What would be your first thoughts if you found out that you were having a baby in nine months? Would it be insurance or government assistance? Or if there was a possibility that the doctor recommended that you get a serious operation such as a C-section?


Now when I think of having a baby, I tend to think first about wanting to be in the best financial situation possible and just hearing about different stories with the hospital bills can be alot at some points. I also think about the time off after having a baby and the dream would be to have a year off after I give birth to just have that time with my child! 


I think that many people don't realize the major and minor flaws in our healthcare system and are willing to look at what others are doing! Especially those simple laws that could assist new mothers and the days and months after birth. 


In the U.S not many mothers or fathers have the privilege to have an entire year off with their child! 


When looking into the healthcare system in Iceland I can totally understand why Iceland is one of the top 3 places to be a mother. Wouldn't you want healthcare that covers all of the cost for pre and postnatal care?


I got to have a conversation with someone at the Iceland embassy in DC. They let me know that there are alot of measures that have been put into place to make it easier for women and men to have a successful career at the same time as raising a family. 


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Maya - Hearing about how Iceland has these things out in place to assist new parents made me want to talk to someone here in the United States about their journey and experiences during pregnancy. I was about to talk to Selena Wolf Berkeley who is a English professor here at Guilford College. She shared with me her experiences and it was interesting to hear the differences between two of her different pregnancies 

 


Selena - “ because I was pregnant, I lost my job and then I was out of work for almost a year, so the maternity leave thing didn't really come into play then. I just took that time off to just focus on my baby. When I was working, I took four weeks off. I think the maternity leave window was six to eight weeks and I chose four because I had to go to work. We had to pay bills. And I'm the primary breadwinner for my family. So with both even after the C-section, I only waited. I think I may have waited six, six weeks. Before I came back to work.


Maya - “The embassy also mentioned to me that free high-quality child care is also essential in Iceland which can certainly help many people out when having children and stay present in their career.”


“Things that may cause prenatal stress during pregnancy are somewhat handled in Iceland starting with the healthcare that is provided to help with the initial visits, all the way to postnatal care when a doula checks up on you at home to make sure that everything is running smoothly.”


“I even got a chance to talk to Selena about the healthcare system here in the United states”


Selena - “ I had a I've had like such a wide range of an experience. So with my first I was on Medicaid for pregnancy. And I also received WIC. 


And the process for that was really grueling to sort of go into the office and sit there for hours at a time and wait for somebody to then kind of pull your life apart and talk about how much money you make and what your plans are and how you're going to take care of your baby, which was felt really condescending in a lot of ways. But then the assistance I received was amazing. I didn't have to worry about paying for labor and delivery. I didn't have to worry about paying for my doctor's visits. It was all covered by Medicaid for pregnancy. With my private insurance that I had with my second and third. It was way more complicated and I had tons of issues with it and I was at the same doctor's office, which was another thing, so with the private insurance, they they kept trying to overbill me and I would come in for an appointment, they would say, oh, well, you owe a thousand dollars this time. And I'm like a thousand dollars! You know, it was just constant issues and money that I had to put out instead of it being covered by what I was already paying for with my private insurance. So it felt like something like universal health care would be a really beneficial thing and probably feel something more like being on Medicaid for pregnancy, except maybe without the level of paperwork to go through every time with every baby.” 


Maya - This is just some of what parents go through although this is not something that they have to go through!!!


Maya - “Now that we have heard about Iceland's way of doing things and the experience of a mother here is the United States how this can potentially affect different statistics and what can we learn from Iceland?” Statistics such as infant mortality, c-section rates and financial support are just a few that I have heard about. 


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Maya - We know that Iceland has all these amazing things such as a longer maternity leave, showing the importance of careers as well as financial support. I would want to live in a place where there are only 2 in 1,000 infant mortality births occurring. Especially when both you and your partner can take off work to care for your new born baby! 


One thing that I found interesting was in a 25 year period From 1989 to 2009 107,000 births occurred in Iceland and there are only five direct maternal deaths and 5 indirect maternal deaths nobody died from postpartum pregnancies, anesthesia complications or anything like that versus in the US those are the top leading complications towards maternal dealth. Especially with high C-section rates can factor into that. Just so you have a comparison in the United states in 1987 the maternal mortality rate was 7 per 100,000 whereas in 2017 it has increased to 19 per 100,000 live births which means that more than half of the deaths are preventable.


Many people don't really know what's happening until they have a baby in Iceland they really don't have C-sections unless it's a very high risk pregnancy but here in the United States it kind of differs depending on where you go and my conversation with Selena made it even more evident about the flaws in our system.


Selena - “ you really you don't realize how much pressure there is to have a C-section until you get into the situation. And I felt so helpless like there was nothing I couldn't convince the doctor. that this wasn't my, my baby was breached. He had only but otherwise everything was completely healthy. He was still like I was fine. He was fine. He just didn't want to move. So I had asked the doctor for more time. I was actually barely 40 weeks. And he was like, no, we need to do a C-section right now. So it's definitely like a go to here that doesn't and should be.”


Maya - I want people to know that C-sections are actually a very serious procedure and is the other option rather than giving birth vaginally. When you get a c-section you are having a procedure that goes through your abdomen and uterus to get your baby out! 


I think a huge problem and a topic for another day is realizing that c-sections are procedures that should be planned for emergencies in the United states they have been scheduled for convenience of the doctor. In the United States 31% of all deliveries are C-sections, while Iceland has a 9% procedure rate! 


Now that you have heard about Iceland and you may be more aware of what's happening I want you to just ask what we can do differently especially for women who want to be in the healthcare field ... When I go into the healthcare field I want to look out for maternal health and figure out different ways that we can lower our infant mortality rates especially maternal mortality rates as well.


Iceland makes sure that they are putting both parents in a situation where they feel comfortable having and raising a baby and I feel like nobody should have to have the financial stress or worry of where they might go next or the help that they might need. I think all those stressors can lead to unexpected pregnancy complications especially if you're not aware of the different resources that you may have, and it can possibly affect you in the long-term.


Closing:

 

Most places should have access to maternal care whether it be free or low cost. Some resources that people can use here in the US are planned parenthood, local health centers as well as family planning centers. You can also look at what the government can help support with in regard to financial assistance throughout the pregnancy! 


This podcast is produced by Maya Chevalier for Spring 2021 Global Health Class at Guilford College. 


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