Newborn Outcomes Among Veterans Utilizing VHA Maternity Benefits, 2016-2020

ABSTRACT Introduction Public Law 111-163 Section 206 of the Caregivers and Veteran Omnibus Health Services Act amended the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) medical benefits package to include 7 days of medical care for newborns delivered by Veterans. We examined the newborn outcomes among a cohort of women Veterans receiving VHA maternity benefits and care coordination. Materials and Methods We conducted a secondary analysis of phone interview data from Veterans enrolled in the COMFORT (Center for Maternal and Infant Outcomes Research in Translation) study 2016–2020. Multivariable regression estimated associations with newborn outcomes (preterm birth; low birthweight). Results During the study period, 829 infants were born to 811 Veterans. Mothers reported “excellent health” for 94% of infants. The prevalence of preterm birth was slightly higher in our cohort (11% vs. 10%), as were low birthweight (9%) deliveries, compared to the general population (8.28%). Additionally, 42% of infants in our cohort required follow-up care for non-routine health conditions; 11% were uninsured at 2 months of age. Adverse newborn outcomes were more common for mothers who were older in age, self-identified as non-white in race and/or of Hispanic ethnicity, had a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder, or had gestational comorbidities. Conclusions The current VHA maternity coverage appears to be an effective policy for ensuring the well-being and health care coverage for the majority of Veterans and their newborns in the first days of life, thereby reducing the risk of inadequate prenatal and neonatal care. Future research should examine costs associated with extending coverage to 14 days or longer, comparing those to the projected excess costs of neonatal health problems. VHA policy should continue to support expanding care and resources through the Maternity Care Coordinator model.

The Inclusiveness of Maternity Leave Rights over 120 Years and across Five Continents

Even though paid maternity leave was the earliest form of social protection specifically aimed at women workers and is fundamental in securing their economic independence vis-à-vis employers and spouses, it has received scant scholarly attention. Neither the traditional historical accounts of welfare state emergence nor the more recent gendered analyses of developed welfare states have provided comparative accounts of its beginnings and trajectories. Employing the newly created historical database of maternity leave, we provide the first global and historical perspective on paid maternity leave policies covering 157 countries from the 1880s to 2018. Focusing on eligibility rather than generosity, we construct a measure of inclusiveness of paid maternity leaves to highlight how paid maternity leave has shaped not only gender but also social inequality, which has, until recently, largely been ignored by the literature on leave policies. The analyses of coverage expansion by sector and the development of eligibility rules reveal how paid maternity leave has historically stratified women workers by occupation and labor market position but is slowly evolving into a more universal social right across a broad range of countries. Potential drivers for this development are identified using multivariate analysis, suggesting a pivotal role for the political empowerment of women in the struggle for gender and social equality. However, the prevalence of informal labor combined with insufficient or non-existing maternity benefits outside the systems of social insurance still poses significant obstacles to the protection of women workers in some countries.

Knowledge and Practices Regarding Infant and Young Child Feeding among Mothers Working in Readymade Garments Sector in Bangladesh: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Optimum is. Adequate Infant and young child feeding (IYCF), critical for child’s growth and development, requires a significant amount of time andcan be challenging for working mothers. In Bangladesh, about four million women work long-hours in Readymade Garment (RMG) factories without proper maternity benefits which raises concern regarding optimum IYCF practice. We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study in Dhaka, Bangladesh to identify the knowledge and common practices of IYCF among mothers working in Readymade Garment sector. Ninety-three women of reproductive age (15-49 years), working in Readymade Garment sector, with children aged 6-23 months, were interviewed. Our study revealed- majority knew about exclusive breast feeding (EBF) (76%), duration to continue breast feeding (73%) and early initiation of breast feeding (53%). The exclusive breast-feeding practice in mothers employed in RMG sector was 44%. Three-fourths of the mothers knew and initiated complementary feeding timely. Both knowledge regarding age-adjusted minimum meal frequency (MMF) (19.4%) and minimum quantity (8.6%) were low; compared to actual practices. Nearly two-fifth of the mothers (40%) had to start working before their child reached six months of age enabling them to provide their baby with breastmilk substitutes. Mothers employed in Readymade Garment sector had better IYCF practice than general population. Proper workplace environment with mandatory breast-feeding corners, daycare facilities and ensuring maternity benefits in these mothers could help achieve an even better IYCF practices for their children.

Maternity Entitlements in India: Women's Rights Derailed

Maternity benefits of at least Rs. 6,000 per child are a legal right of all Indian women under the National Food Security Act, 2013. In practice, a large majority are still deprived of maternity benefits. A recent survey, conducted in six states of north India, brings out that pregnant women’s basic needs for nutritious food, proper rest and health care are rarely satisfied. Among women who had delivered a child during the 6 months preceding the survey, about half said that they had been eating less rather than more during pregnancy, and nearly 40 per cent complained of a lack of rest at that time. The figures are much worse in states like Uttar Pradesh, where, for instance, one third of the same women had not had a single ante-natal checkup. Average weight gain during pregnancy was just 7 kg over nine months in this sample, down to 4 kg in Uttar Pradesh. Aside from poor nutrition, lack of rest appears to be a major factor of low weight gain during pregnancy. There is an urgent need for better recognition of the special needs of pregnancy, provision of maternity benefits in accordance with the law, and better support for pregnant women including quality health care.

Propuestas de reforma para fomentar la natalidad, la conciliación y la familia en el IRPF

España está atravesando una época de grave crisis demográfica y, paradójicamente, en la actualidad, existe una brecha entre maternidad/paternidad deseada y maternidad/paternidad real. Existen diferentes barreras socioeconómicas que contribuyen a que los españoles tengan que sacrificar su deseo de tener más hijos, una de las más importantes, según ha quedado recientemente acreditado por la encuesta publicada por el Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE. Encuesta de Fecundidad de 28 de Noviembre de 2018), es la dificultad que encuentran los españoles a la hora de conciliar su trabajo profesional con su vida personal. Los tributos tienen una finalidad extra tributaria y pueden ser un instrumento de política fiscal que proteja y promueva los valores protegidos en la Constitución, por ejemplo la familia. Mediante políticas fiscales adecuadas se pueden proteger valores como la maternidad, la paternidad, la conciliación, la corresponsabilidad, la igualdad, la infancia y en definitiva, la familia. El presente artículo analiza el régimen tributario de las prestaciones por maternidad recientemente modificado tras la sentencia del Tribunal Supremo número 1482/2018, profundiza en el papel de la familia como agente de cambio capaz de revertir el problema demográfico que atraviesa nuestro país y propone medidas tributarias para reformar el Impuesto sobre la Renta de las Personas Físicas (IRPF), medidas que promueven la conciliación, fomentan la natalidad, protegen la paternidad y la maternidad y facilitan el cuidado de los hijos y la atención a las familias.Spain suffers from a major demographical crisis, but, paradoxically, there is a gap between desired and real parenthood as well. There are many socio-economical barriers which contribute to Spaniards giving up their willingness to have children, one of the most important of which is the difficulty to keep a work-life balance (INE 2018). Taxes can become an instrument to a fiscal policy that promotes and protects constitutional values, for instance, the family. Through appropriate fiscal policies taxes can promotes and protects parenthood, work-life conciliation, co-responsibility, equality, childhood and, ultimately, family. This article analyzes the tax regime of maternity benefits recently modified after the Supreme Court 1482/2018, deepens the role of the family as an agent of change capable of reversing the demographic problem that our country is going through and proposes measures tax to reform the Personal Income Tax, measures that, by means of facilitating work-life conciliation, promote natality and remove difficulties from children and family care.

A. Bogaevskiy. The meaning of maternity benefits in connection with antiseptics and asepsis. (Zemsky Doctor, 1894, No. 13-14)

The article presents the rch pronounced in the annual meeting of the Society of Kremenchug doctors.

State, Policy and Gender at the Workplace in India: A Comparison Over Time

This article seeks to compare the effect of gendered perceptions of labour on women’s presence in the workforce in early 20th-century colonial India, as nascent industry sprang up in several parts of the country, and towards the end of the 20th century. We compare the entry and exit of women workers in the mill industry of South India in the first half of the 20th century with the informalisation of labour in the fish processing industry, whose workforce was predominantly women, in the 1990s. The regulation of women’s work by means of protective laws that sheltered them from “hazardous” work and mandated benefits such as creches at the workplace and maternity benefits conditioned women’s employment in multiple ways, ranging from how they were resented and mistreated by male workers and how organised unions debated and finally championed equal wages for equal work to how women got excluded altogether. After independence, protective laws and regulations grew in number and women’s participation in the labour force steadily came down. One way to cross the hurdle to women’s large-scale employment raised by protective legislation is to employ women on informal terms. This means walking the thin line, on the part of employers, between observing the law on contract workers and their benefits in letter and complying with the law in spirit. The fish processing industry that came up along the Indian coastline is a good example of informality at the workplace mediated by gender. Differences in gender perceptions across India’s culturally varied regions explains why most workers in the fish processing industry hail from one single state, Kerala.

Konanie vo veciach sociálneho poistenia – diskriminácia otcov pri posudzovaní o nároku na dávku materské?

Gender equality is one of the fundamental values of democratic countries and is considered a prerequisite for a socially just, democratic and inclusive society. The level of gender mainstreaming is currently insufficient and different approaches to men and women can be seen in different situations. The aim of the paper is to point out the possible discriminatory approach of the Social Insurance Company when deciding on the entitlement of fathers to maternity benefit. The contribution deals with the legal regulation of proceedings in social insurance matters focusing on decisions on entitlement to maternity benefit for fathers. The topic for discussion is whether it is abuse of the social system if the father claims maternity benefits while working. Methods of comparison and content analysis of selected documents were used for the paper.

World war and welfare legislation in western countries

This article examines the impact of the two world wars on welfare legislation in 16 western countries. We use Poisson regressions to test our hypothesis that war was a catalyst of welfare legislation, especially in countries that were heavily exposed to the dreadful effects of war. By welfare legislation, we mean the inaugural adoption and major reforms across four programmes (old age and disability benefits, sickness and maternity benefits, unemployment compensation and family allowances). Our findings suggest that both world wars are key factors for explaining the timing of comprehensive welfare reforms and outweigh the significance of other factors such as regime type or level of economic development.

An Analysis of the fastest growing Indian economy facing the situation of unemployment-A Dichotomy

Classical economist believed that full employment was a normal situation in the economy- in other words all those persons, who are qualified to work, willing to work and able to work at the current wage rate, get the job without any considerable delay. Supply could create its own demand, hence there was no need for any kind of Govt. Intervention in the economic affairs of any economy (Production Arises Due to Joint Actions of all the factors of Production but labour is the most important) If disequilibrium exists between the forces of demand and supply conditions of labour, commodity and savings, it could be automatically adjusted with the flexibility of wage rate, price and interest rate. The real wage rate is determined at a point where the demand of labour is equal to supply of labour. According to Pigou, decline in Money wages increases the volume of employment through reduction in cost and prices of Goods, (Since prices do not respond in the same proportion, therefore real wage also declines with the fall in nominal wage rate) During the great depression of thirties, workers were willing to accept a nominal wage cut but volume of employment was constantly declining Keynes came on this juncture and gave his macro-economic analysis wages are not only a part of the cost of production but also the income of the workers. This reduces the level of aggregate demand and hence volume of employment. Psychologically nobody wants money wage to be cut (neither it is theoretically sound, nor practically possible). In almost all countries laws have been formulated for minimum wages, unemployment insurance, sickness, maternity benefits and a number of other social security measures (Transfer payments). UN report (2010 to 2019) shows that working population (population between the age 15-64) is 67% percent and on the other side, India has become a fastest growing economy in the world, but jobs are not increasing Fundamentally when an economy grows it means output and employment both the variables respond in the positive direction An attempt has been made to examine this mismatch /dichotomy in this research paper.