Trish: [00:00:00] My name is Trish Ware and I am obsessed with all things pregnancy and birth and helping you to navigate with the practical and the magical seasons of this journey called motherhood. I'm an all day coffee sipping mama of seven. I've had the amazing privilege of delivering many babies. In my 15 plus year career as a labor and delivery nurse, and as a mama of seven, I'm here to help you take the guesswork out of childbirth so you can make the choices that are right for you and your baby.

Quick note, this podcast is for educational purposes only and does not replace your medical advice. Check out our full disclaimer at the bottom. of the show notes.

Welcome Mamas. Good morning to you guys. I'm so happy you're here with us today. Today's guest is Daphne Delvaux and she [00:01:00] is the Mama attorney and she is going to just share with us what it is that she's doing and why she's so passionate. So welcome Daphne.

Daphne: Thank you. I'm an attorney, but I like to think of myself as a lawyer for Babies.

So I'm just like America's love lawyer, because there's a lot of attorneys that are out there to they don't have good intentions. But my goal as an attorney is to help mothers understand their rights in the first place, and then also have the confidence to ask for what they need at work with the goal of preventing separation between mother and baby.

And also allow the mother to take care of her body during and after pregnancy, because what we're seeing is that too many moms are pushing through their pregnancies to meet the obligations of their employer or they're returning back to work way too soon when their baby is still way too young, not knowing That they actually have rights that they can use to [00:02:00] spend more time with their baby or not having the confidence or not feeling empowered to ask for what they need.

Which is very valid, of course, cause we're going against the people paying us. And I do this in a way that is very holistic in a sense that I don't teach anyone to be antagonistic, to be demanding. There's a way to educate your employer on what your rights are. That they can really appreciate because most employers, and I'm an employer, but most employers do not keep track of all of these rules.

Like it is very confusing. It is very overwhelming. So what we see a lot in the workplace is when mothers ask for something like maternity leave, the employers don't always know, like they're not always aware of what the rules are, what their obligations are. So when a mother can go in and actually educate her employer, the employer can really appreciate that because it keeps them also within the bounds of the law.

So I teach women and mothers how to educate themselves and their employers and then by extension protect their [00:03:00] babies. And I started doing that for myself when I was an employment attorney myself at a law firm and really recognizing how my advocacy that I had used for my clients now had to be turned towards myself and my baby and using the tools that I've been using.

Using from my clients and really harnessing those towards. my own life and creating a blueprint for other women to protect their careers while protecting their babies as well. So I started sharing some of this content on social media and immediate just got a ton of responses because there was a sense of we don't know where to go.

Like we can't always trust our HR. Usually HR folks are. Great professionals, but they're not always legally trained. And they don't always know what the rules are. Or sometimes they're not providing full education. Because again, it's confusing and and then women were googling and going on government websites and it's all very confusing and overwhelming.

And also the rules are different [00:04:00] based on where you live. So women are, we're just getting turned around and they just didn't know where to go. And there was a sense of relief of Oh, finally, there's like an actual ally, another mom, someone who gets it. that can provide the like trusted and consistent and reliable information.

And I'm just basically your neighborhood legal geek that loves to read all of this stuff so that you don't have to worry about it. Cause as moms, most moms don't want to read regulations. So if you can just have someone tell you what to do and what to say during these really tricky situations, What do you want?

What are you going to do when you have morning sickness and you're about to be late for work, but you're still throwing up? What are you going to do when you have a high risk pregnancy? What are you going to do when you have to pump, but you have a deadline? There's all of these, there's a lot of friction between workplace demands and then our motherhood demands.

And during the motherhood transition, especially pregnancy, postpartum, those can, those, that tension can be really activated. And [00:05:00] that's where we

Trish: meet you. I love that so much. And I. guarantee that this is such a huge gap. And as you were talking, I was just thinking about, like you said, like these employers probably don't even really know all that they're supposed to be doing.

Maybe they haven't updated their policies or don't understand. And then you're right. You've got a mom who's navigating so many hormonal and bodily changes. And having to figure all that out on your own with pregnancy brain going on and exhaustion and all that I'm sure is so difficult. So I want to go back to a couple things that you said and I know that it's different everywhere but give me some examples for the mom who is Mor has morning sickness and is gonna be late to work.

So

Daphne: when the mom has morning sicknesses and is gonna be late to work, what a lot of people [00:06:00] don't know is that you can ask for accommodations under the Pregnant Workers' Fairness Act. And you can ask for essentially to be excused from policy. What the law says is that when you have company policy that usually applies to everyone, when you have someone in a protected class like pregnancy, policy has to be set aside and policy can include attendance policy.

So let's say you have to be at work at 9 a. m., but you're still. In the bathroom and it's 8 30 and your commute is 40 minutes. You can go to your employer and say, I'm gonna need to be excused from this policy because it's really hard for me to get there on time in light of the nausea that I'm having in the morning.

You and I both know that I'm getting all of my work done. I just really cannot get here by nine. It is not possible for me right now. And there is a law that protects that conversation and also the woman's right to be accommodated and. Essentially for her job to be made a little bit easier for her.

The law [00:07:00] recognize recognizes that pregnancy is a job, being pregnant in and of itself will limit. your ability to work to some extent, not for all moms, but for some moms, especially those that have conditions and symptoms go going beyond pregnancy, like extreme morning sickness or a high risk pregnancy or tension in in the pelvic floor.

And the law recognizes that we have to protect those women and we have to protect those babies. And we do that by. Telling the employers, letting the employers know and putting them on notice that they have to do whatever they can to help these women and help these pregnant women stay employed because what the law doesn't want is for all of these women to either be pushed out of their jobs because they can't keep up with all the expectations and all the policies or for the women to feel like they have to quit.

So the law is designed to keep women employed and on their health care plan. It's,

Trish: I literally had [00:08:00] no idea. And I'm really one, yeah, I'm really wondering if a lot of people have no idea.

Daphne: No one knows this. And also, like we were saying, employers. don't know this. What's even more important here is that we're not we shouldn't expect employers to know employers provide a specific service.

I'm staying on top of employment law is usually not that service. That's my service. It's my skill. So expecting your employer to know all of this stuff, it is not reasonable. And what a lot of people do is that they expect Their employers to tell them these things, which they won't like, not only cause they don't know, but it's not really in their best interest.

So women have to follow the policy. Yeah, exactly. You don't see that a lot. So there's so many things like that. And then even during the postpartum period. So what I help a lot of moms with. When they exhaust their leave rights, when their leave rights come to an end and let's say they have postpartum anxiety or [00:09:00] postpartum depression, that is a qualifying reason to extend your maternity leave so you can stay home with your baby or when a parent is in the NICU you can use accommodation rights to work remotely so that you can save your leave rights because I see a lot of parents with babies in the NICU go back to work to save leave rights and there's just a lot of things that can be done.

And I find what's really important here in this context is that, and I love the conversations we're having on social media when it comes to motherhood at work, because it is very hard. And I will also say that there's a ton of misleading content. There's a ton of outrage content that is actually searing women away from the options that they have.

And my job is to teach you the options that are right in front of you that you didn't even know. So give me an example of some of this content that's leading them astray. So some of the things, so for example, even saying America has no maternity leave or even paid maternity leave, that's [00:10:00] true for about half of the mothers.

We do not have federal paid maternity leave, but a ton of states more and more. Every year have state benefit programs that mothers can use to get paid, get paid by their state so that they can take time off work.

Trish: Whether or not the employer offers it,

Daphne: the state. Yes. Okay. So there's a lot of states that have paid leave programs.

that you can rely on so that you do not have to go unpaid. And women just don't know this, so they're not looking into it because we're all assuming that we have no paid maternity leave. In addition, we do not actually use the concept maternity leave. In the legal, when we talk about these leave rights, we talk about medical leave.

We talk about family leave. We talk about bonding leave. So when women ask for maternity leave, it is the wrong question. So there's just a lot of these little nuances and intricacies that you just don't know until you, unless you're an expert. And I'm just seeing a lot of [00:11:00] conversations within the context of maternity leave.

by non experts that are actually misinforming women.

Trish: I, I'm thinking back to any content that we've done and I'm like, gosh, I hope I haven't done that. Obviously. Yeah. Okay. Good. Cause I don't think so. I would have told you what moms really want. And I wrote paid maternity leave,

Daphne: yeah, no. And it's great.

And we all do and I work with the chamber of mothers and organization I co founded to advocate for. paid leave for all mothers, and we shouldn't discount or minimize the importance of that. But when I speak about these issues, I always make sure to mention at the very least that there are state programs, state benefit programs that about half of the women in America have access to.

So that while we that's incredible, right? So while we fight for paid leave for all, which we absolutely need, and it's vital and essential, we also cannot forget about the mothers that have access to it right now and just do not know. [00:12:00]

Trish: That's amazing. I had a neighbor, I, it just blows my mind. I had a neighbor at my last house and she was getting ready to deliver and I don't remember exactly where she worked.

It was somewhere here in Nashville. She had, she got two weeks off. Yeah. Two weeks. And I was like, can't even fathom that.

Daphne: So when I would sit down with a woman like that, I would ask her like, have you looked into your accommodation rights? Because often what women ask for is their leave, maternity leave.

And the employer says we don't offer that because it's a question about policy instead of rights. And we would have to check the eligibility for the actual leave rights, which is different from the policy that the company provides. And then we would have to look into accommodation rights as well. So I usually have a whole conversation with these women, which usually ends up with a woman Being completely blown away that she had options that she didn't know about [00:13:00] and I don't want to present represent that it's easy or that we have all these protections, which we don't like.

It's still pretty barren, but there are some things we can do. And I think my job is to educate women that. Who assume they have no options. That, that may not be true. The options are not great, but there usually are some things you can try, but they're not going to be based on what your employer is telling you.

They're going to be things that you're going to figure out on your own.

Trish: Wow. So tell me as well, we were talking about NICU moms and I remember a big up rise happening maybe last fall about a NICU mom and some stuff.

Daphne: Yeah. The kites, the kite termination. Yeah, that's another example of social media misrepresenting something in the legal context.

And so she was fired because she asked for, to work remotely from the NICU. And and she said, I want to work remotely because my baby, my [00:14:00] baby's here. And then she, they didn't let her, they denied the accommodation. And while I want to offer support to this mom, the way that we have our moms ask this question is to ask for time off for anxiety and stress.

Instead of asking for time to be with a baby, and this is a very small nuance, but when you ask for time for stress, it is actually illegally protected, and the employer has to do their ultimate best to grant it. But when you ask for time to be with your baby, or because you don't have child care, or because the daycare is closed, that is an immediate, fast track to termination.

So it's just these like small little nuances, but our moms get accommodated every day just for their own stress, because that is actually illegal, right? And then I saw a lot of discussion around like the paid leave would have solved this problem, but she was actually asking for an accommodation, right?

Which is a different right than leave [00:15:00] rights. That is actually a different conversation. So there's just a lot of things that I'm seeing where I'm like, I wish we could have a seminar. I need to set the record straight on a lot of things here. And I understand the outrage, but it is a little bit misplaced.

And as a legal expert, often it is I under, I get it cause I'm a mom in America and I know it's hard, so I think it's really easy really swept up in these conversations without actually pausing and saying, is this actually true? And what is that? What does the law actually say? How do we apply this to the situation?

What can we learn from this? So that's the work that I do. It's letting everyone take a breath. Yeah. And instead

Trish: of canceling, cancel a whole employer and company when they were actually doing, the right yeah, nothing illegal.

Daphne: But that Yeah, and it was wrong. It was unethical, of course, especially for a baby company.

But these are things we see every day is that women use the wrong language and end up getting out of, they're out of a job. [00:16:00] And yeah, and so that's my

Trish: job. How you say things is I, we've been navigating the family court system for the last couple years through a nightmare of a situation. And It is so true.

The way you say it makes all the difference in the world.

Daphne: Yeah. And that's what legal education is. It's Using a word can make the difference between you keeping your job or losing your job or having more time with your baby or not having more time with your baby. It is so specific.

It is so technical. I don't love this for moms because they're tired. And why are they supposed to deal with that? But it is what it is. And how are they supposed to know the right words without someone like you? How

Trish: do they,

Daphne: and I only know these, know the language because I have lived in these conflicts between employers and employees and where all of these conflicts could have been prevented by using the right language.

One of my program actually gives you email templates So that you can just copy paste it based on [00:17:00] the need that you have because it's so hard to know the right words to use when you go against your employer. That's really scary. And a lot of women feel nervous to use legally charged language, which we understand.

So we try to everything that we create for our moms is from the gentle, kindest, most professional place that possible.

Trish: I, I love that because it's right in alignment with what I teach my students. My birth classes were born from the same kind of thing. A frustration of seeing women told, when we admit them, we read, we tell them their rights and then we strip them of them.

And it really is how you communicate and navigate that. And like when I'm at bedside, I can't refuse things for her even though the doctor's ordering. I'm like, this is BS. She doesn't need this. I can't confuse, refuse it. She can. And one of the really big reasons why my birth classes are radically different than anyone else's.

I meet [00:18:00] with my moms every Wednesday, me or doulas, and we coach them because there is a huge difference in how you refuse to a doctor and have a positive outcome with that because if you're not educated in how to speak the language and how to navigate it, then you're going to fall into they're my authority, they know more than I do, and I have to be wrong.

And so we help them navigate that, and it sounds very similar. the same type of thing. And we do the same thing. And we're not, we don't teach our students to say, I am a patient. I have a right. This is my birth. And I don't care what you think. We teach them how to navigate it with grace and, stillness, take time, step away, let, wait for the emotions to die down.

And, unless it's an emergent situation, it's a little different, but. In an emergent situation, hopefully they've picked a provider they really trust [00:19:00] and they, can navigate that. And we say that, we tell them you can refuse anything, but should you have to be educated to know.

And I love what you're saying because I just did an interview with an attorney who works with hospitals on baby cases like trauma. And she was talking about, that we were, we had a similar conversation in how these cases are approached from the parent's side on whether they win or not. And it all goes down to the right wording and the right and it's just crazy how that infiltrates through all these different things when when we're at our most vulnerable.

It's

Daphne: unfair, right? It's unfair. And that's why we want to have the right language before we meet before the emergency. So I really like to get women in my orbit when they're thinking about pregnancy or when they just got pregnant, so that they don't end up in a situation of Oh my God, I have to go [00:20:00] back to work.

My baby's not taking the bottle. What do I do? I need my healthcare. They're expecting me back at work tomorrow. Those are situations we want to think through before they happen. And leave planning, for example, is another issue where we want to get on that like when we're pregnant, right when we got pregnant instead of waiting too long to start prepping for our leaves, because then you can end up suddenly with a complication.

You have to go to the hospital. Your boss is waiting for a project. And so we're very mindful of the prevention that we can do. And I definitely think within birthing as well. We just prepared with the chamber of mothers, like a mom's bill of rights with all of the rights in the healthcare contexts that you can attach to your birth plan so that you actually think about it before you go into the emergency situation, because when you're vulnerable, you cannot advocate for yourself.

Like you have to find that muscle. before and [00:21:00] then make sure that people that are surrounding you know what to do based on the plan that you have set out.

Trish: I love that so much. For my birth program, we have a three part framework. And the first part of course is knowledge, education, understanding what's happening inside of you, around you.

The other part is the mental aspect, which you're a mom, you know that birth is like 90 percent mental. But that third part is the support and boldness And you can't do that without the other two, you can't do any of them without all three. But we say the same thing, it has to happen before you step foot in the labor room.

Like you can't and we, my, my birth class is actually really a pregnancy class. We start at the beginning, I'm the same way. I love when they join me. when they're trying to conceive or early pregnancy because I can help them navigate all those really pivotal early decisions you make that can so affect your birth and how to navigate the conversations with the providers that they love to put off till the very end because then you're too exhausted to switch providers or [00:22:00] what have you.

But I love that you're saying the same thing, like you, you don't know if you're going to be that one who has, extreme Nausea and vomiting and all those things like being prepared with that knowledge is just so powerful. I love that so much. I have a couple other, I have a couple other questions for you and I'll put some links in the show notes in the captions for you guys so you can find Daphne's content and we'll talk about that in just a second.

What about dads?

Daphne: Yeah. Let's talk about dads. I have a few cases cause I have a law firm as well. And we have, we represent moms and we represent dads. Dads come to me usually when they are demoted after parental leave. So when they go on paternity leave and they come back and then there's this assumption that dad is not committed anymore.

Or dad is no longer one of the guys. That is their [00:23:00] sacrificing his whole life. So dad's actually have rights. Specifically related to caretaking. Dad's also have leave rights. Now they're not taking it. This is something we should talk about. And when I'm talking about dad's What is essential is that as a couple or as co parents you're gonna have a meeting with each other where you're looking at what the rights are collectively for both parents.

And then you figure out what is our joint leave plan. What I like to do with couples when I work with them is have them stagger their leaves. A little bit of time together in the beginning and then mom stays home and then dad stays home when mom returns to work because that allows mom to have peace of mind to return to work with the other parent with the baby instead of a stranger often or a daycare center.

And then she can really focus on her reentry and finding strength in that before fully moving into some sort of care. Facility [00:24:00] or provider. So what I like to do with dads is making sure that they take their paternity leave when mom returns to work. And dads also have to actually know their rights to paternity leave and then actually take paternity leave.

And that's the issue we're seeing is that it's not really the norm, right? Like it's still expected that women take the time off and dads take maybe a few days and go back to work. And that's something that we're trying to educate. That's on as well as making sure that they don't know their rights.

And also moms have to stand firm in this, like if as a mom, you have to take the time because. Really, you have no option as a mom. And also usually you really want to but dad's it seems like it's optional for them and I'm not okay with that, like dad really needs to be held to be the equal parent here especially if mom is already doing all the work of physically moving through pregnancy and postpartum so having a conversation with your partner, looking [00:25:00] What the leave rights are first and then what the handbook provides.

Those are two separate things and then really coming up with a joint grant to leave plan. And again, you want to do that early. You want to do that when you just found out you're pregnant because sometimes you can run into a situation where you realize one or both of the parents do not have any benefits options or paid leave policy.

And then you have to save, you have to save up. I tell a lot of parents that are in that situation instead of having a baby list with all of the expensive stuff. You can ask for your community to fund your parental leave. And but you want to know that early. You don't, too many dads are like, Oh, I'm having a, my wife's having a baby.

And then they don't actually have that conversation at work of what am I entitled to? Often they just go back to work after a few days. So it's important that dads know and feel empowered to take the time. They're worried about retaliation, which absolutely happens. There's data on that.

But moms are worried about [00:26:00] retaliation too, and we don't really have an option. So the more that dads can take the time, the less moms will be discriminated against. Because otherwise it's only women. That are taking the time.

Trish: This is just so brilliant. I love it. I, so what about with, the same situation?

Because when you were talking about the mom who is going to be late because she's so sick, what if she has other children that have to go to daycare and all of that? Does dad have rights? If this is all going on, that he can be late to work or no? Would that not apply? Dad

Daphne: does not have rights to be late to work because it wouldn't be based on his own condition.

But dad would have a right if he has anxiety. So if he's experiencing anxiety from managing the family and the pressure of providing and all of the things. He can ask for accommodations based on stress or leave of absence. If that's the case, none of us are ever going to work

Trish: again. [00:27:00]

Daphne: I know.

But people don't know that you don't need to have a physical condition to ask for accommodation rights or leave rights. You can actually have a mental condition. experience as well. And. And can they penalize you for that? Legally, no. They do, obviously. Otherwise, I wouldn't have a job. But legally employers are not allowed to retaliate or discriminate for an employee asserting physical or mental limitations.

Trish: What about if it's affecting the quality of their work? Like they can't.

Daphne: Yeah, that's a little different, like through all of these scenarios, you still have to do your job unless you're on leave, of course, when you're on leave, you're not even allowed to do your job. But when you're just still working, you still have to do your job.

Now, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act says that if your job can be done later, or by someone else, the employer has to try their ultimate best to make that happen. So if there are non urgent projects And especially because pregnancy is a limited period of time then those [00:28:00] have to be done later.

That's good to know,

Trish: because I was wondering that, because I know when you were saying about the mom who's sick and you mentioned in that. that her work was being performed well and completed. I knew that had to be an important. Anything else, because, I, we talked when we first started that we like to keep these, shorter and sweet, because we know you mamas are exhausted.

You might be chasing toddlers or just tired, but tell anything else that you feel is really important. To know and tell everyone where they can find you. And I'm going to put links to your resources in the show notes.

Daphne: I think the most important thing to know is to not wait too long to announce your pregnancy.

That usually has the opposite effect. So that can really backfire because it's only when you give notice of your pregnancy that you can use the protections and are also actually protected from discrimination. So I see a lot of, there's this assumption.

Trish: That's so contrary to everyone else saying, don't announce just in case.

And you mean to the employer, they don't have to tell everyone they [00:29:00] work with, they can tell the employer.

Daphne: Yeah it's really a risky move because eventually you're going to have to announce it. Bring this to the employer. No, but to the employer, like right away, I have my mom's announced it in writing.

Because then you can use accommodation rights. And then if something adverse happens to your job, You can take recourse, but a lot of moms do is they will wait. And then the employer actually notices that the work quality is going down. And then the mom ends up on a performance improvement plan and then sometimes out of a job.

And then they call me and they're, and then I'm like did you even tell him you're pregnant? It's no, I was fired. I was worried I would get fired. And I'm like you ended up fired and now you can't do anything. So When you assert your right, when you assert your pregnancy and something bad happens, you can tie that to your pregnancy and you can take recourse.

And also if you wait too long to announce your pregnancy, you're giving your employer a really short window to prepare for your absence. [00:30:00] And I think as moms, it's important that we're not naive about the fact that a leave of absence creates an impact. Like it has an operational effect. On an organization like I have also been on the receiving end of that as an employer, and I think a lot of moms are like, it's, feel like it's the employer's problem to figure it out.

And I don't think that's fair to an employer. When you're pregnant and you give an employer a lot of time to find someone else to train someone else to reshuffle your work, you're actually going to reduce the chance of being discriminated against. Because if you're not helping your employer and you give them really short windows to prepare they're gonna distrust you.

And we see that a lot in our cases is that when women hide their pregnancies, bosses Feel like the woman lacks transparency and that can really cut against you in the long run

Trish: And like you said if they don't know you're pregnant, then they don't have to go [00:31:00] by that act, right? They don't have to follow any no

Daphne: idea Yeah, and then when you if you're late, they can fire you on the spot And then if you're like I'm pregnant it doesn't work that way, like you cannot suddenly Assert your pregnancy after the fact You don't have rights just because you're pregnant you only have rights when your employer knows you're pregnant.

That is a

Trish: huge golden nugget, you guys. Huge golden nugget. I am, I really, I am just so blown away and thinking I really want to chat with you about how we can work together because I, this just isn't common knowledge. And I've, we have our mama membership, which is part of our program.

So we have moms from trying to conceive all the way to a few years postpartum and getting pregnant yet again. So I love all of this. so valuable and I'm just so grateful for what you're doing. Thank you so much. And everyone you guys can find Daphne on Instagram [00:32:00] as the mama attorney, correct? And I'm,

Daphne: and we have a program as well, the liberated mother society.

I'd love to see you in there as well, where we have all of this information.

Trish: And I'm going to link to all of that in the show notes. And thank you so much for what you're doing. And thank you so much for coming on today. Of course. And thank you. I really enjoyed talking to you as well.

Hey, Mamas. I hope you enjoyed this episode with the Mama Attorney, and I hope you learned as much as I did. It was invaluable. Take a moment, click the links in the show notes and check her out. She's, it's just incredible. You need to know these things. Knowledge is power. As always, hit subscribe, leave a review, and I'll see you again next Friday.

Bye for now.