| Families: Study Tracks Ailments Found in New Mothers
Columbus Dispatch (Ohio), October 24, 2004. Home Final Edition; Section: Features - Life, p.05H
by H.J. Cummins, Star Tribune
The cause was a healthy pair of new twins, Zachary and Anna. Carolyn Solberg couldn't be happier. She couldn't be more tired.
"Part of the reason you need maternity leave is you're not getting any sleep," said Solberg, a nurse practitioner at the Partners in Pediatrics clinic in Maple Grove, Minn.
Fatigue is one of about two dozen ailments found in working mothers in new research by the University of Minnesota. The study is part of an emerging science that looks at what some experts see as a long-neglected consideration: How women physically recover from childbirth and the implications for workplace policies in America.
The university study of 716 new mothers is tracking common postpartum ailments such as fatigue, backaches, constipation and hemorrhoids for 18 months after childbirth.
"One of those health problems doesn't sound dramatic," said Patricia McGovern, principal researcher on the project. "But the women had an average of six of these symptoms."
The issue is important because women with infants are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. workforce, McGovern said. The 2000 census showed that 63.5 percent of women with children younger than 6 are working.
Some predict that by lifting these ailments from "nuisance" to "illness" status in the case of new mothers, women could gain new rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act. The law requires employers of 50 or more to grant 12 weeks' unpaid leave a year for family needs, including the birth of a child.
McGovern says family-leave policies will work better if they take the recovering mothers' common ailments into account.
She remembered attending legislative hearings when Minnesota passed its parental-leave act in 1987.
"People talked, No. 1, about the cost to the employer; No. 2, about the mother's job security, and No. 3, a little bit about baby bonding," she said. "But no discussion that I ever heard was on the women's health."
However, family leave is already controversial.
Employers complain the act's provisions have been stretched far beyond its original intent, which is to help workers get through serious health problems.
Women's groups, on the other hand, want to provide at least partial pay during leaves, arguing that many employees otherwise couldn't afford to take them.
Some business groups don't believe there is a problem with the status quo.
"I think generally employers are going to accommodate women coming back after pregnancy to deal with health issues," said Tom Hesse, vice president for government affairs at the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. "My sense is they are pretty flexible."
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