There will be longer leaves for some parents. Politicians are exceptionally agreed

Late on Thursday evening, the Sejm held the first reading of the government’s draft amendment to the Labor Code. It introduces additional leave for parents of premature babies and children hospitalized after birth. All parliamentary clubs showed rare agreement on this matter.

After the debate, the Deputy Speaker of the Sejm, Monika Wielichowska, announced that the Confederation had submitted a motion to proceed to the second reading of the bill without referring it to the committee. “We will start voting on this motion in a voting bloc,” she said.

Who is supplementary maternity leave for?

Those entitled to supplementary maternity leave will be:

• employee-parents of children born before the 28th week of pregnancy or with a birth weight not exceeding 1000g,

• employee-parents of children born after the 28th week of pregnancy and before the 37th week of pregnancy or with a birth weight greater than 1000 g, and

• employee-parents of children born after the 37th week of pregnancy, whose child will require hospitalization from the 5th day after delivery until the 8th week after delivery, provided that the child’s stay in the hospital after delivery will be at least 2 consecutive days, the first of which these days will fall in the period from the 5th to the 28th day after delivery – in the amount of a week of supplementary maternity leave for each week of the child’s stay in the hospital in the period from the 5th day to the end of the 8th week after delivery.

The leave is to be granted to mothers or fathers.

The amount of maternity benefit during additional leave will also change: it will amount to 100%. basics of the benefit.

According to data from the Central Statistical Office, over 270,000 children were born in Poland in 2023. children – nearly 20 thousand of them are premature babies, i.e. children born before the 37th week of pregnancy.