Questions I Would Like To Ask Politicians Who Are Opposed To Parental Leave
I've got a feeling they wouldn't ace this quiz.
Somebody-- maybe Mark Twain, maybe Otto Von Bismark, maybe somebody else entirely-- once said that laws are like sausages: unpleasant to watch being made.
When the laws being made concern issues that impact real people's lives, and class stratification and privilege inoculate those making the laws from their impact, lawmaking becomes much more unpleasant for spectators than sausagemaking. It's more like watching a drone operator deciding whether or not to remotely bomb a petting zoo.
A lack of paid parental leave in the US is a source of international embarrassment, and agreement across the political spectrum that something must be done to remedy this is about as close to consensus as one could hope for in this political climate. More than 80% of voters support paid family leave, including more than 70% of self-identified Republicans.
Still, Congress hasn't acted on this, despite the public mandate. All 50 Republican Senators and one Democratic Senator have stood against a Democratic proposal that included paid family leave. The Democrat, West Virginia's Joe Manchin, has three adult children and ten grandchildren, all of whom ostensibly were not raised by nobody. The 50 Republican senators who stood united against the Democratic proposal (42 men, 8 women) have 130 children between them. (I wonder how many nannies raised that many children of that many rich guys.)
And because the average age of a US Senator is almost 65, I'm going to assume that even those who took an active everyday role in raising their own children are pretty far removed from the lived reality of today's parents.
So, with that in mind, here is a quiz of extremely basic information about childbirth and parenting babies that elected officials making laws about parental leave should know, but probably don't, because they're too old and/or too rich and/or were too uninvolved in their own children's upbringing to care. (answers at the bottom!).
What is the average cost of an uncomplicated vaginal hospital birth in the US?
What percentage of births are paid for by Medicaid?
How much does a C-section cost?
How long do mothers who receive C-Sections stay in the hospital?
How long can a patient expect to bleed after giving birth vaginally?
How often do newborn babies eat?
How long does the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend exclusive breastfeeding for most babies?
How long do lactation experts advise mothers to exclusively feed their children from their breasts (not bottles containing pumped milk)?
How many times per day must a breastfeeding mother pump per day to keep up her supply, if she's separated from her child? How long does a single session of pumping take?
How long after having a C-section are mothers told not to drive cars?
What percentage of babies born in the US are delivered via C-section?
How many doctor's appointments will an otherwise healthy newborn baby have with their pediatrician during their first six months of life?
What is the name of your nearest day care? How long is the waiting list for infants there?
What is "letdown" and when does it happen?
How much does one month of infant day care cost, on average, in your state? How about nationwide?
How much does one year's worth of baby formula cost?
How big of a wound does the placenta leave when it exits the mother's body post-birth?
How much blood is lost during childbirth?
How often do newborn babies wake up? At what age are most babies physically capable of sleeping through the night?
How many diapers does a newborn go through in a week?
How much does a pack of diapers cost?
BONUS QUESTION: In the first episode of White Lotus, an employee of the hotel named Lani discovers during her first day on the job that she is in labor. Her water breaks at the front desk and she gives birth in Armond's office. Did you find it weird that her character is never revisited for the rest of the show and nobody brings up the birth at all?
Answers:
In the US, the average cost of an uncomplicated vaginal birth and attendant care for the person giving birth is over $22,000-- but that figure varies a lot depending on who you ask, because our health care system is an absurd farce and cost varies immensely depending on where you live and whether or not you have insurance.
Nationwide, 43% of births are paid for by Medicaid. This varies greatly between states; in Vermont, only 20% of births are covered by Medicaid. In Arkansas, 68% are.
A C-section and maternal care associated with a C-section costs over $32,000.
Post C-section stays are 3-4 days.
Mothers can expect to bleed vaginally for between 4-6 weeks after giving birth. They are also instructed to not insert anything vaginally for several weeks due to a risk of infection, so: pads and blood-soaked Depends it is!
Newborns eat every 2-3 hours, on average. This includes during normal business hours. As of now, we do not have the technology to Business Train a baby's appetite.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that infants are fed a diet of exclusively breastmilk for the first six months of their lives.
Lactation experts recommend waiting to introduce a baby to a bottle for between 4-6 weeks. Remember! Babies 8-12 times per day, and are notoriously poor at observing traditional business hours. In order for a mother to follow the recommendations of the experts, she would have to be in the physical presence of their infant for feeding sessions that can last from 20 minutes to an hour, every 2-3 hours, for 4-6 weeks. Seems like a tough thing to do while also required to be at work in order to earn enough money to live.
A breastfeeding mother who is separated from her newborn because she's at work or for other reasons must start by pumping once every 2-3 hours, for 15-20 minutes at a time, plus the time it takes to unpack, set up, take apart, and clean her equipment. As her baby gets a little older, she can pump every 4 hours. This is necessary for her to maintain a milk supply which, as we've established, doctors recommend as an exclusive source of food for infants for the first six months of their lives.
People who have had a baby via C-section are told that they are not to drive a car for at least 2 weeks. Those of you who believe that new moms should boostrap it and simply walk to work: not so fast! C-sections are major surgeries and mothers who have had them aren't supposed to engage in vigorous activities of any kind until 4-6 weeks after they deliver.
One-third of babies born in the US are delivered via C-section. That's much higher than the global rate, and three times the rate that the WHO recommends. That's also a lot of women who can't drive or lift anything heavier than a baby for several weeks at a time!
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends otherwise healthy babies see their pediatricians at birth, at 3-5 days old, and at 1, 2, 4, and 6 months old. Babies with more complicated health pictures should go more often. Regardless of their health in their early lives, babies presumably, are not taking themselves to the doctor.
Waiting list times for group day cares varies from as much as 18 months to 2 years (or longer, if you live in select insane areas), so unless parents lined up infant day care before they even got pregnant, they will have a hard time finding childcare for a baby on short notice.
Letdown is when a mother's milk comes in, a few days after giving birth. It also involves a plunge in hormone levels, and, for most, a great deal of breast pain, as well as some leaking from the breasts. This happens regardless of whether a mother plans on breastfeeding or not, and also happens when mothers deliver a stillborn infant. Kind of fucked up that we don't mandate that birthing parents be given off during this time, right? I mean, read through all this stuff. How inhumane is it to expect somebody who is going through a multi-month medical ordeal to return to work leaking, crying, and bleeding all over themselves, or to take unpaid time off in order to deal with this? It's obscene.
The average cost of one month of daycare for one infant is $1300 (again, if you did your homework and enrolled your future baby in daycare before you were even pregnant). This varies by state, and urban areas can be more expensive-- in Washington, DC, for example, infant day care costs an average of more than $1900 per month. In-home care one-on-one care is more expensive, unless a person is lucky enough to have a family member who is willing and able to provide care for free, or is unscrupulous enough to pay an in-home care provider an subliving wage.
Okay, so we have established that exclusively breastfeeding is a big ask, and it's pretty much impossible logistically for some. Formula feeding will set a family back between $821.25 and $2920 in a year, depending on the brand. One way or another, baby must eat.
The placenta leaves a hole in a woman's uterus that is the size of a dinner plate.
Half a quart of blood is lost during a vaginal birth, a quart during a C-section.
Newborn babies sleep for 2-3 hours at a time (waking up to feed, because they have tiny stomachs), and aren't capable of sleeping through the night until at least 3-6 months old.
Newborn babies go through between 8-12 diapers per day, which comes out to 56-84 diapers per week.
A pack of 128 Huggies Lil Snugglers costs $43.49 at Target. A little napkin math from the previous question means that's about 10-16 days' worth. From that, we can conclude that diapers will set a family back about $1130 a year, give or take. Fancier diapers cost more.
BONUS QUESTION: The Venn diagram intersection between people who watched White Lotus and members of the US Senate is probably small-- seems like more of a Dancing with the Stars and CSI crowd-- but those who did watch didn't even think about Lani by the end because they were too busy sympathizing with Shane.
Screenshot from Magnolia/ New Line