Supplementary maternity leave for parents of premature babies and hospitalized children has come into force – check out what has changed!

On March 19, 2025, an amendment to the Labor Code came into force, introducing supplementary maternity leave – a new entitlement for employees who are parents of children born prematurely or children born on time but requiring long-term hospitalization.

Employers should read the following article to find out when and under what conditions you will be required to grant additional leave to employee-parents.

What is supplementary maternity leave in Poland?

Supplementary maternity leave is a new entitlement that allows working parents of premature babies or babies born at full term but requiring long-term hospitalization to take additional leave, which is granted immediately after the end of the standard maternity leave.

This leave can be granted to both the mother and the father who is raising the child. It is granted as a single period and cannot be divided into parts.

The length of the leave in Poland is between 8 and 15 weeks, depending on the circumstances of the birth:

When calculating the duration of supplementary maternity leave, the periods of the child’s hospital stay until the end of the 8th or 15th week after the birth, respectively, are added together. An incomplete week is rounded up to a full week.

Adoption and supplementary maternity leave in Poland

The good news for employees is that the right to take supplementary maternity leave also applies to those who have taken a child into their care as a foster family (but not a professional one) or if they have taken a child into their care and applied to the guardianship court for his or her adoption.

The duration of supplementary maternity leave in this case will be calculated in the same way as for the birth of the child, except that the child must have been hospitalized after the child has been taken into care.

How and when to apply for supplementary maternity leave in Poland?

The application for supplementary maternity leave must be submitted in written or electronic form at least 21 days before the end of the maternity leave. The employer is obliged to consider such an application.

The application must be accompanied by a certificate from the hospital containing information about:

• the week of pregnancy in which the birth took place
• the birth weight of the child
• the period of hospitalization of the child

What happens if more than one child is born?

If more than one child is born at the same time, the following factors are taken into account when calculating the supplementary maternity leave:

• the birth weight of the child with the lowest weight
• the period of hospitalization of the child who spent the longest time in the hospital.

How much maternity benefit is paid during supplementary maternity leave?

During the period of supplementary maternity leave, the employee will receive a monthly maternity benefit amounting to 100% of the benefit calculation basis.

Protection of the employee on supplementary maternity leave

From the date of application for supplementary maternity leave until its end, the employer may not:

• prepare a termination or terminate the employment contract
• terminate the employment relationship, unless there are reasons justifying termination without notice due to the employee’s fault, and the employee’s representative trade union organization agrees to this.

If you would like to know more about supplementary maternity leave or other employee entitlements related to parenthood, please contact our specialists from the Labor Law department: [email protected]