How Remote Work is Encouraging Pregnant and Postpartum Moms to Overwork

Remote working sounded like a dream to many parents and soon-to-be parents when it first became the standard for office workers two years ago. Wait — we can throw in a load of laundry, make a real lunch, see our kids more and work at the same time? All in our pajamas? Yes, please. But reality has proven to be much more difficult from those trying to conceive, people who are pregnant or postpartum, and recently returned to work parents. In fact, remote work has been exacerbating their struggles, causing a murky and imbalanced life for some, and negating the potential benefits.

Lauren Brody is the author and founder of The Fifth Trimester and Co-Founder of the Chamber of Mothers, a collective movement to prioritize mothers’ rights, including paid family and medical leave. She says there are multiple factors at play impacting parents’ stressors in the context of remote work, from unreliable childcare to poor parental leave policies in the U.S.

“Because of the childcare crisis, many, many clients who I’m talking to are trying to make do with a patchwork of childcare. It does not give them the same steady full coverage that they would have in pre-pandemic times,” she told The Org, pointing to a 41% increase in childcare costs since the pandemic began. Of course salaries haven’t increased that much to offset it, she says. Childcare can also be hard to find, with childcare programs operating at or below 80% of enrollment of that available before pandemic times. This issue, and many others, increase the pressure for pregnant, postpartum, and new parents, in general, to work more while trying to watch their kids as much as possible.

Less-than-compassionate leadership with “invisible” pregnancies

We’ve heard stories about women who chose to hide their pregnancies during remote work from their employers, for a variety of reasons. But other women have vocalized that they are pregnant and struggling, but haven’t been met with the same compassion as they might have if an in-person boss saw them every day in person, struggling with exhaustion, aches and pains, medical conditions, or balance as they went to weekly doctor appointments. This is happening to Jenn*, an Ohio-based Brand Management team member at a top consumer packaged goods company. She has struggled with weight loss due to job-induced stress, as she approaches her end-of-March due date.

“I think there’s a huge disconnect driven by a lack of understanding. Without having experienced remote work as a parent/expecting parent, the empathy isn’t there, which has impacted me in so many ways,” she told The Org. “My stress, anxiety, and overall happiness have declined rapidly the last year.”

She said her bosses have even questioned her “work ethic” when she’s been transparent about pregnancy-related challenges, such as leaving her at home remote work station for doctors’ appointments. “It’s very disheartening and leaves me questioning whether I am with the right company.”

Battling physical stressors of remote work

Jenn’s situation reveals another remote working issue for pregnant people — it can be physically difficult, even painful, to sit for 8 hours at a desk during pregnancy, even without any additional medical conditions. Nikki Greenaway, Nurse Practitioner and Curriculum Advisor at Major Care, also owns Bloom Maternal Health providing telehealth and home visits to pregnant and postpartum families in New Orleans and Houston. She says that back pain can be an issue, especially for remote workers who are pregnant.

Women in tech and other industries too might feel their inability to sit for a long time impacts their ability to work. “Back pain can be very severe, like ‘I can’t sit in this chair a long time,’ and a lot of people get sciatic nerve pain,” she said, saying that she hopes people ask for referrals to pelvic floor physical therapists if this is happening, rather than powering through it. Also, she said workers can try to request taking more breaks from remote work, to go outside, move around, or lay down. “If they want to, they can ask to extend the workday to take more breaks.”

Jenn said that her doctors have supported her remote working to reduce her risk of COVID-19, but seemed limited in what they could do to alleviate her boss’s expectations, in the absence of a “true medical need.” This leaves employees like her stuck in a stressful, remote work environment at the mercy of her boss’s demands.

“I find it very hard to say no when people ask for help or give me additional work. I don’t want to appear that pregnancy makes me a less valuable member of the team. Remote work during pregnancy is definitely a challenge but with all of the added difficulties COVID has brought (such as daycare closures) it has made this exponentially harder.”

Remote work with an infant on your lap

The childcare crisis, financial strains and lack of guaranteed paid leave for parents have resulted in a crisis that looks like mothers trying to work, breastfeed, change their new baby’s diaper and heal with an infant in their lap. If parents do have maternity leave, Greenaway reminds them not to blur those boundary lines at all by answering any emails or being available — be “real off,” she said. “Don’t give the perception you can even do a little bit because they’ll take a mile.”

Teresa Douglas, a former people and operations manager of a Fortune 500 EduTechcompany, and a current author and speaker in Vancouver, tried to return to work with her baby in her lap since “remote work is so flexible,” and it didn’t go well.

“I thought that working from home would be easier because my child would be right there, so feeding him and changing him in between meetings would be doable,” she said, looking to a coworker who had been able to keep her child next to her while performing her operations role. But she quickly discovered it wouldn’t work.

“Babies and work each have their own special chaos..there were always crises popping up that unexpectedly needed my full attention throughout the day. It was unreasonable to expect my child to hang out quietly on my lap while I typed away or tried to talk to people in meetings,” she said, but her baby hated the noise from the Zoom meetings, and she couldn’t focus.

Brody says full maternal healing doesn’t happen until the 6-month postpartum mark, according to a recovery and milestone timeline she referenced by Better Life Lab. So, the lack of paid family leave is contributing to remote workers feeling like they have to both work and watch their babies, possibly earlier than they are ready to do so.

Navigating unclear boundaries

Remote work is causing some parents to have flexibility, but others to feel like they are always thinking about working even if they have to grow, birth, feed and nurture a new baby. Kaycie West, a Human Resources Business Partner in Washington state, welcomes remote work’s flexibility while navigating fertility treatments, but now, as a mother to an 11-month-old, finds it impossible to draw boundaries between home and work. She calls in “insane pressure” to try to balance work and being a dedicated and nurturing mother, while taking care of at-home tasks.

“Balancing work and parenthood is no joke, and remote work has just blurred those lines even further, because you are 'always on' even when you are 'off,'" she said. After her son goes to bed, she gets back online to work late into the evening, saying it leaves her feeling anxious, exhausted, and inadequate as both a wife and mother, and at work. “While my boss says ‘draw boundaries’ and ‘the work can wait,’ my key stakeholders are demanding and I am new in my role and feel a self-imposed pressure to ‘prove myself,’” she told The Org. The imbalance remote work caused is a “dark cloud” over her head as a new mother.

So, though pajamas and mid-morning snack breaks might seem attractive, remote work comes with additional stressors for pregnant and postpartum parents. Brody hopes people will try to reconnect with the benefits of remote work whenever possible, whether it means a bit more sleep, wearing comfortable clothes, or taking a quick walk outside, or “you will feel resentful.”

• Name has been changed for privacy.