A Postdoc’s Guide to Pregnancy and Maternity leave

I only discovered today that the National Postdoctoral Association published “A Postdoc’s Guide to Pregnancy and Maternity leave”. It’s a short guide that tells you all the things that you should keep in mind before, during and after your pregnancy as a postdoc. That’s incredibly helpful, because as a postdoc you’re not a student but regularly not a real employee either, so it’s often vague what your rights are concerning things like maternity leave. 

Click here for a larger view.

The only slight flaw that I could discover is that they list ‘looking for childcare’ as something to do after the baby is born. In our case that would have been way too late. Our university only has one childcare center with about 12 spots for babies (!), so we were smart enough to put our names on the list when I was only 8 weeks pregnant. The daycare center knew I was expecting before my close friends did, just because otherwise we would probably not have got a spot.

Anyway, go and check it out if you’re a postdoc and pregnant or considering to get pregnant.

So long and thanks for the fish, National Postdoctoral Association!