The first days after the birth of a baby should be a time of joy and special closeness for parents with their new, little family member. However, this is not always possible. In such cases, parents are faced with the fear for their child's health and life. The endless days and weeks in the hospital are no rest and celebration of parenthood. On returning home, such a little one requires a great deal of care, often rehabilitation - the time spent in hospital should not be taken away from them.

Council of Ministers in favour of additional maternity leave for parents of premature babies

The Council of Ministers on Tuesday adopted a bill prepared at the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy introducing a new entitlement - additional maternity leave for parents whose child is born prematurely or requires a prolonged stay in hospital. The length of the complementary maternity leave will be up to 8 or 15 weeks, respectively.

A strong state is a state that never forgets the smallest. And it is difficult to imagine someone smaller than a premature baby,’ said the head of the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Policy, Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, during the presentation of the project's assumptions.

Additional maternity leave - under what conditions?

The additional maternity leave being introduced will be taken in one part, immediately after maternity leave, by working parents of children born prematurely and of children born on time but requiring hospitalisation. This leave will be granted on request, meaning that it will be up to the parents themselves to decide whether they want to take it. It will also cover adoptive parents and foster families.

Importantly, the benefit for the period of additional maternity leave will be 100 % of the benefit base.

For whom will be additional maternity leave?

Those entitled to additional maternity leave will be:

• employees, parents of children born before the completion of the 28th week of pregnancy or with a birth weight of 1,000 g or less,
• employees, parents of children born after the 28th week of pregnancy and before the 37th week of pregnancy or with a birth weight of more than 1,000 g, and
• employees, parents of children born after the 37th week of pregnancy, whose child requires hospitalisation from the 5th day after the birth until the end of the 8th week after the birth, provided that the child's stay in hospital after the birth lasts for at least 2 consecutive days, the first of these days being between the 5th and the 28th day after the birth, at the rate of one week's additional maternity leave for each week of the child's stay in hospital between the 5th day and the end of the 8th week after the birth.

Leave will be granted to mothers or fathers, as well as legal guardians, foster or adoptive parents.

8 or 15 weeks?

The length of the additional maternity leave will be up to 8 weeks or up to 15 weeks respectively, depending on the length of the child's hospitalisation, the week of pregnancy in which the child will be born or the child's birth weight.

The duration of additional maternity leave will be for:

• employees, parents of children born before the end of the 28th week of pregnancy or with a birth weight of 1,000 g or less, one week of additional maternity leave for each week of the child's stay in hospital until the end of the 15th week after birth - a maximum of 15 weeks,
• for employees, parents of children born after the 28th week of pregnancy and before the 37th week of pregnancy or with a birth weight of more than 1,000 grams, one week of additional maternity leave for each week of hospitalisation - a maximum of 8 weeks,
• for employees, parents of children born after the 37th week of pregnancy, whose child will require hospitalisation, provided that the child's stay in hospital after birth will be at least 2 consecutive days, with the first of these days falling between the 5th and the 28th day after birth - at the rate of one week's additional maternity leave for each week of hospitalisation between the 5th day and the end of the 8th week after birth - a maximum of 8 weeks once the above-mentioned conditions have been met.

Thus, in order for the employee to be entitled to additional maternity leave, the child must be hospitalised between the 5th and 28th day after the birth for at least 2 consecutive days. If the hospitalisation will take place on the 29th day after the birth and the child has left the hospital after 3 days after the birth, the employee will not be entitled to additional maternity leave.

In determining the amount of additional maternity leave, the periods of the child's hospitalisation up to the end of the 8th week or the 15th week after birth will be added together, and an incomplete week will be rounded up to a full week. This regulation takes into account the intervals between the child's subsequent hospitalisations.

What about leave for parents, uniformed services employees?

In order to ensure that everyone, including officers of the Customs and Fiscal Service, the Police, the Fire Service, the Military Counterintelligence Service, the Military Intelligence Service, the Border Guard, the Prison Service, the State Protection Service, the Marshal Guard, the Internal Security Agency, the Intelligence Agency, the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau, professional soldiers, teachers, farmers the right to additional parental entitlement, as well as to ensure the possibility of adjusting regulations remaining within the competence of other Ministers, a request was made to amend laws in these ministers, adjusting their activities to the proposed changes.

Accordingly, the proposed law has also been extended to include changes to service pragmatics.