Dad's Postpartum

Hello readers,

Today something on the fathers... It is commonly known that the first weeks after birth are quite precarious for mother and child, who both go through a huge process of transformation. The presence of daddy during these days contributes in a positive way to the birth of a family. Moreover, it gives new dads the perfect opportunity to add a crash course in fatherhood to their cv. Later on in life, fathers not seldom complain that due to professional obligations they missed out on the precious first days of bonding. It won't come as a surprise that the debate on the number of (paid) days off during the immediate postpartum has been on political agendas across the globe for many years.

Photography Cheriejoyful, Creative Commons Flickr

In The Netherlands for instance, some have been arguing for years that the country is lagging behind with its low number of paternity leave days.  

The Dutch government is now working on legislation that is planned to enter into force in 2019 and that will extend the number of paid paternity leave days from the current 2 days to 5 days, reports Het Financieele Dagblad. Would this bridge the gap?

Photography Owen Lin, Creative Commons Flickr

A 2014 report by the International Labour Organization allows for a quick global comparison. According to the ILO, at least 79 countries of the 167 monitored, have enshrined paternity leave in their national legislation. Of these, 44 countries – among which for instance Benin, Kenya, Latvia, Slovenia, Portugal and Iceland – offered a paternity leave of seven days or more.

Numbers do not say everything though. The number of paid days, conditions upon which payment is granted and the height of the benefit may vary. Furthermore, much depends on the exact definition of ‘paternity leave’. Some countries for instance, might not make the distinction between paternity and maternity leave on the one hand, and parental leave on the other hand.

Photography Colin Bowern, Creative Commons Flickr

For practical reasons, I’ll stick to the description offered by the ILO in the above mentioned report. It notices that paternity leave is usually seen as “a short period of leave to care for the child and the mother around the time of childbirth”. Parental leave on the other hand “tends to be a longer period of leave to care for the child beyond maternity or paternity leave and is typically available to one or both of the parents”. With this in mind, let us take a closer look at some countries of interest.


Belgium

In Belgium, fathers have a right to ten days of paternity leave which they can claim within four months of the delivery (starting on the day of birth itself). They do not necessarily have to claim them all in an uninterrupted row. During the first three days of leave, fathers have a right to their full wage, to be paid by the employer. In the final seven days, they have a right to a benefit of 82% of their lost bruto wage. More information can be found here.

Denmark

Fathers in Denmark have a right to two weeks of paternity leave, which they should use within fourteen weeks of the delivery. The leave is paid, but the exact amount of the benefit varies from sector to sector. Employees in the public sector are paid their full wage, while in other sectors it depends on the arrangement negotiated between employers and employees. More information can be found here.

Photography Talli, Creative Commons Flickr

Germany

In Germany there seems to be no paternity leave in the Dutch and Belgian sense of the word. More information on the general system of parental leave and allowance – ‘Elterngeld’ and ‘Elterngeldplus’ can be found here and here.

Norway

Norway makes no distinction between different forms of leave concerning birth and upbringing of children. Instead, all couples who are eligible (depending on, among other things, the last place of employment, duration of employment prior to the leave, and income) get 49 or 59 weeks of parental leave, depending on whether they choose a 100% or an 80% financial coverage. Of these weeks, thirteen are allocated to the mother – three prior to, ten after delivery – and ten to the father. The parents can divide the remaining weeks among themselves as they see fit. More information can be found here. 

Photography Szoki Adams, Creative Commons Flickr

Slovenia

In Slovenia, fathers have a right to fifteen days of paid leave within the first six months after their child is born. According to their own preference, they may use them all in a row, or plan individual days. More information can be found here, here, and here.  

Sweden

Swedish fathers have a right to ten days of paid leave after their child is born. On a larger scale, the Swedish system of parental leave is quite elaborate. More information on the Swedish model can be found here, and here.

National Day of Birth

Dear Readers!

 Just a short note to mark a special day.

Daily, an average of 500 babies are born in The Netherlands. For the majority of couples, giving birth and welcoming their baby is one of the happiest moments of their life. Unfortunately, for about 48 couples a day, this happiness is overshadowed by sorrow. Their babies are born with complications, ranging from premature birth, low birth weight/growth restriction, and congenital abnormalities to a combination of different problems.

Today, it is the National Day of Birth in The Netherlands. A day on which we celebrate the joy of welcoming new life without turning a blind eye to the challenges we are still facing in ensuring a healthy start for every single baby. 

This day is an initiative of the dutch Born Healthy Foundation, which advocates a healthy birth and tries to generate funding for establishing scientific research that can contribute to finding causes, ways of prevention and cures for common birth complications like pre-eclampsia, congenital abnormalities, and growth restriction. The research also focusses on the pregnant woman herself and how she can optimize the outcome of her pregnancy.

As a midwife, I wholeheartedly support this cause, and wish everyone – pregnant or not – a happy and healthy Day of Birth!

Those of you who feel like supporting the drive towards making pregnancy and birth even healthier, can have a look here.

Birth of a midwife

Hi Folks!

Sorry for keeping you all in the dark about my weal and woe for so long. I had such a hectic time. I rounded up my internship in Slovenia, finished the last assignments of my midwifery training, graduated, and took a long, well deserved, and necessary summer-break. I tried to spend as much time as possible offline to recharge my batteries. And here I am, back with new, fresh energy to embark upon the job-hunting journey and to start my working life as a midwife!

Assignments, graduation and holidays!

As most of you know, I did a traineeship at the Labour Ward of the University Medical Centre Ljubljana from February until May 2016. In that context, I was interviewed by Utrip, the newsletter of the professional association of nurses and midwives in Slovenia. One of the main things they wanted to know was what kind of experiences and competences I acquired while at the UMCL.

Interview in Utrip

Coming from Belgium, arriving in the hectic clinical setting of a big labour ward with an impressive number of births a year was quite exciting. The UMCL birth centre is located in its own building and encompasses a labour assessment unit (triage), 11 labour rooms and two operating rooms, several maternity floors, a Maternity Intensive Care (MIC), a neonatology department (N*), and a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

Most of the time, I worked at the labour ward, where a team of multidisciplinary professionals warmly welcomed me in their midst and took an active part in my learning process. The team of eight midwives that took me under their guidance, made me feel at home and at ease right from the start.  

It was very inspiring for me to train in a clinical setting in which the midwives are the primary birth experts. They turned out to have a lot of experience in applying labour and delivery techniques that spare the perineum and avoid episiotomies as much as possible. I am very grateful they were willing to pass on this know-how to me.

Thank you to the team!

In Slovenia I got to experience the added value of working in a large and multidisciplinary team, with all disciplines involved in childbirth at little more than shouting distance. Having so many different competences and fields of expertise at hand, creates an environment that is both challenging and stimulating – I really enjoyed working in this team setting and learning from the varying individual skills of the other team members.

In Belgium we have CTG monitors in the office and in the rooms of the patients. It holds the risk of relying on the screen too much and paying less attention to clinical observations. In Slovenia, I further learned to focus on the patient. Because of the higher number of natural births, I also gained more experience in recognizing, guiding and coaching the different stages of labour. I conducted more than the required number of deliveries for my logbook and I got the chance to see different kinds of high-risk labours and pathologies and learned about their management.

Through this internship, my horizon of knowledge, my clinical competency, and my flexibility have been broadened and deepened. Working in a foreign clinical setting has made me familiar with the use of other materials, approaches and procedures in health care. I acquired knowledge and skills that will help me pursue my ambition of a career as a global midwife and to provide high-level midwifery care regardless of the health care setting I am in.

Thank you to the mothers! (picture with permission)

Thanks to the positive teaching and learning climate, I also gained confidence in my competency as a midwife. This traineeship helped me to further strengthen my interpersonal skills and it further stimulated my open-mindedness and helped me to rethink and sometimes revise my ideas and approaches where useful/necessary. It also further increased my capability to fit in any type of working environment.

I am very grateful to the patients who entrusted it to me to bring their hope and dreams into this world, and to all team members for offering me this training opportunity and for contributing so positively to the birth of this midwife.