During my Fulbright year in northern Spain’s La Rioja region, I built connections with two women in my host community who were both expectant mothers. I learned from them not only about language and culture, but also about how their professional lives supported motherhood.
The contrast between the maternity leave policies they described and those I was familiar with in the United States was striking.
Spain guarantees 16 weeks of fully paid, job-protected maternity leave, while the United States is the only high-income country in the world without paid leave.
The 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) allows eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave. To qualify, employees must have worked for their employer for at least 12 months and be employed at a workplace with 50 or more employees. This means millions of jobs nationwide are not covered, and the consequences for maternal-infant health outcomes are dire.
In 2019, the Connecticut legislature passed CT Paid Leave (CTPL), a law providing partial income replacement while on leave. These benefits launched in 2022, the same year that state protections under CT FMLA expanded to cover job protection for all employers with at least one employee in the state. Connecticut Paid Leave provides partial wage replacement on a sliding scale, but the federal FMLA and the CT FMLA separately cover job protection.
As of 2026, Connecticut is one of just 13 states plus Washington, D.C. with paid leave policies. But because the wage replacement and job protection programs operate individually, expectant mothers must navigate multiple applications. Even after approval, the partial wage replacement creates an income gap. While CTPL is a much-needed step forward, the work is far from over. Even with the law in place, Connecticut is not immune to national realities.
Nationwide, the current maternity leave system hurts new moms. Returning to work within 12 weeks of giving birth increases risk for postpartum depression, but a quarter of new moms in the United States are back at work in less than 10 days. In addition, the United States faces the highest rates of maternal mortality of all high-income countries. Of the maternal deaths in the United States each year, over half occur in the highly vulnerable postpartum period and disproportionately affect women of color. Data shows that Black women are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women. Trends in Connecticut mirror these patterns. The Connecticut Health Foundation reports that Black women made up a disproportionate percentage of pregnancy-related deaths compared to live births between 2015 and 2019. More recently, the Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health gave Connecticut a D on its 2025 State Report Card.
That these health disparities persist indicates a larger underlying issue at play that the existence of a law alone cannot mask. CTPL is a framework, but other factors shape its implementation. Employer resistance and workplace culture can make it difficult for new moms to take leave. Participants in a study on barriers to paid parental leave in Connecticut published in 2025 identified employer impatience, language barriers, and a lack of awareness about the policy as obstacles to implementation. It is often marginalized and low-income families that are most disadvantaged by the lack of paid maternity leave; low-income workers are more likely to return to work prematurely due to income instability and job inflexibility.
If CTPL is expanded to guarantee full wage replacement for low-income families and longer leave, and is also implemented equitably in practice, it is likely to strengthen health outcomes for mothers and infants alike. Paid leave may double the duration of time that new mothers breastfeed, which is associated with the decreased risk of infections, chronic diseases like diabetes, and even Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Since paid leave also increases opportunities for pediatrician visits, it is associated with increased rates of infant vaccination.
Nearly half of Americans rank ‘family’ as a top value today, yet there is no federal provision guaranteeing paid maternity leave to protect its integrity. In the 30+ years since the passage of the FMLA, the percentage of working mothers of children under 18 in the American workforce has increased, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, but they remain underserved.
On National Working Moms Day this March 12 and every day, we must work to address the unjust disparities in access to leave and understand the value of expanding paid leave. State and federal fully paid, job-protected maternity leave must be championed to support women’s socioeconomic freedom, maternal-infant health equity, and workforce security in Connecticut and beyond.
Sanjana Ranade is a graduate student at the Yale School of Public Health.