Similar stereotypes affect mothers - 63 percent of whom are working while their youngest child is under three, according to the Labor Department - but pregnancy is a more visible identity, said Ms. There isn’t a lot of incentive to awkwardly insert a pregnancy announcement into a work conference call: Passing pregnant women over for raises and promotions, or pushing them out of their jobs entirely, is both illegal and commonplace.Īnd research suggests that pregnant women tend to be seen as less competent, more needing of accommodation, and less committed to work as compared with women who don’t have children, said Eden King, a professor of psychology at Rice University who studies how pregnancy affects women in the workplace. This behavior is known as “benevolent sexism” in academic literature. It also means a chance to avoid a certain kind of seemingly well-intentioned but unwanted help from colleagues - like preemptively lightened workloads - that can make women feel suddenly less capable. Not going into a physical office means getting to skip a lot of awkward small talk (“So, will you be breastfeeding?”) and unexpected belly rubs. Many pregnant women cannot work remotely, and those who do tend to feel lucky. If you’re the one who is pregnant, at a certain point you don’t have those options.īut that’s not the case with remote workers, a category that expanded to include more than 42 percent of employed Americans during the early days of the pandemic, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. My husband told the team he manages that he would be taking parental leave at a weekly meeting during my second trimester. They can inform their bosses about their intentions to take parental leave months before telling co-workers who won’t be affected by their absence they can casually mention at the end of happy hour that their baby is due in a week or give a presentation to a large group without first disclosing that they’ve chosen to expand their family. Which, I imagine, is how things often work for expectant fathers.įor parents-to-be whose bodies don’t broadcast the pregnancy, it’s possible to share news of an arriving child with close colleagues but omit it at client meetings. I didn’t intentionally hide my pregnancy from a majority of my colleagues. Instead, I focused on, talked about and was asked about work. doi:10.1016/j.wombi.2015.08.But when I logged on to work remotely each morning, all mentions of my ballooning body and imminent life change abruptly stopped. A qualitative exploration of body image experiences of women progressing through pregnancy. Watson B, Broadbent J, Skouteris H, Fuller-Tyszkiewicz M. First-time pregnant women’s experiences of their body in early pregnancy. Weight gain during pregnancy.īergbom I, Modh C, Lundgren I, Lindwall L. doi:10.1111/ics.12029Ĭenter for Disease Control and Prevention. International Journal of Cosmetic Science. Randomized, double-blind, controlled trial. Use of a specific anti-stretch mark cream for preventing or reducing the severity of striae gravidarum. Hernández JÁG, González DM, Castillo MP, Falcón TF. Striae gravidarum: risk factors, prevention, and management. Why do some women's belly buttons pop out during pregnancy?įarahnik B, Park K, Kroumpouzos G, Murase J. Pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain: an update. Weight gain during pregnancy, by trimester. Strips of hope: accuracy of home pregnancy tests and new developments. Why is 40 weeks so important?Īmerican College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
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