Government announces extended maternity leave for mothers of premature babies

On May 24, 2024, the Minister of Family Affairs, Labor, and Social Policy – Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk – presented a bill to introduce an extended maternity leave for mothers of premature babies into the Labor Code.

The extended maternity leave is intended to meet the needs of mothers of children who were born premature or require prolonged hospitalization after birth. The draft is expected to be approved by the Council of Ministers later this year.

The bill inspired by the voice of the public

The bill follows earlier promises by the Ministry of Family Affairs, Labor and Social Policy, which as early as December 2023 announced its intention to work on changes to maternity leave for mothers of premature and hospitalized newborns.

The impetus for the changes was a petition addressed to the ministry, requesting that paid sick leave be provided to mothers from the time of delivery until the child is discharged from the hospital.

The ministry’s response to the initiative was precisely the idea of extending maternity leave for parents of premature babies. According to the ministry, mothers of premature babies and hospitalized newborns need more time to care for their newborn.

This is because a parent of a premature baby cannot properly rest and enjoy parenthood if the baby requires an extended stay in the hospital.

What will be the rules for granting extended maternity leave?

Extended maternity leave is to be an additional leave granted immediately after the end of maternity leave. The leave will be granted at the request of the employee.

However, it is worth mentioning that the child’s parents do not have to mandatory decide to use the leave. According to the current draft, the leave will be granted once, without division into parts.

Protective provisions related to the exercise of parental rights will be applied to the additional maternity leave accordingly, i.e:

• protection against unfavorable treatment by the employer or negative consequences against the employee for taking additional leave, and
• prohibition of any preparations for dismissal of the employee during the period of additional maternity leave, including from the date of application for additional maternity leave and the taking of such leave.

The benefit for the period of additional maternity leave is to be 100% of the benefit base.

Who will be eligible for extended maternity leave?

The bill stipulates that extended maternity leave will be available to:

• employees-parents of children born before the end of the 28th week of pregnancy or with a birth weight of no more than 1,000g,
• employees-parents of children born after the completion of 28 weeks of pregnancy and before the completion of 36 weeks of pregnancy and with a birth weight of more than 1000g, and
• employees-parents of children born after the 36th week of pregnancy and whose child will require hospitalization from the 5th day from the day of delivery until the end of the 8th week after delivery, provided that the child’s stay in the hospital will be at least 2 consecutive days in the period from the 5th to the 28th day after delivery.

The leave is to be granted not only to parents, but also to legal guardians, adoptive and foster parents.

What is the size of the extended leave?

The extended maternity leave assumes that an employee can take additional leave, after the maternity leave ends. The draft provides for two maximum amounts of additional maternity leave:

• up to 8 weeks, or
• up to 15 weeks.

This will be derivative of, among other things, the period of hospitalization of the child, the week of pregnancy in which the child is born, or the child’s birth weight.

The amount of leave for employee-parents of children born before the end of the 28th week of pregnancy or with a birth weight of no more than 1,000g will be affected by the period of hospitalization of the child.

Such an employee will receive one week of additional maternity leave for each week of the child’s hospitalization until the end of the 15th week after birth – a maximum of 15 weeks.

Employees-parents of a child born after the completion of the 28th week of pregnancy and before the completion of the 36th week of pregnancy and with a birth weight of more than 1,000g. They will receive one week of additional leave for each week of the child’s hospitalization until the expiration of 8 weeks after delivery – a maximum of 8 weeks.

For employee-parents whose child was born after the 36th week of pregnancy and will require hospitalization from the 5th day after delivery until the expiration of the 8th week after delivery, additional maternity leave will be granted at the rate of one week for each week of the child’s stay in the hospital from the 5th day after delivery until the expiration of the 8th week after delivery, provided that the child’s stay in the hospital is at least 2 consecutive days in the period from the 5th to the 28th day after delivery.

When will additional maternity leave come into effect?

The effective date of the proposed amendments to the Labor Code is not yet known. At this point, parliamentary work on the project has not yet begun.

However, the project has already been registered in the list of legislative and programmatic works of the Council of Ministers, and its adoption by the Council of Ministers is planned for the third quarter of 2024. Thus, there is a chance that the changes will come into force even in 2025.

If you have more specific questions about the maternity leave rules in Poland, we encourage you to contact the specialists in the labor law department of our law firm at: [email protected].