Crisis Conversations: Working pregnant in the time of COVID
Podcast
Photo by FotoAndalucia on Shutterstock
July 24, 2020
The coronavirus pandemic is completely upending the way we work, live, connect with one another and what we expect from our government, communities and each other. It’s all happening so fast that stress levels and anxiety are sky high. That’s why the Better Life Lab is hosting a weekly interactive conversation for people to come together, share stories and begin to make sense of what’s unfolding and what it could mean for the future of gender equity, health, how we work and how we live.
Crisis Conversations–Live from Better Life Lab is hosted by Brigid Schulte and produced by David Schulman.
Pregnant workers already face discrimination on the job, Before the pandemic struck, the United States was the only advanced nation without a national paid maternity or parental leave policy. Now, pregnant workers have to navigate workplaces that pose real infection risks — often without recourse. Delivering a child in the pandemic has become fraught and isolating. And for many new moms whose low-wage jobs are considered "essential," the emergency paid leave law Congress passed doesn’t even apply. So what can we learn from the pandemic about how to better protect pregnant workers? How can we ensure healthy outcomes for new mothers and children, and, in particular, for new African American mothers and children, whose rates of infant and maternal mortality are alarmingly high?
To take on this question, Better Life Lab's Brigid Schulte is joined by:
- Gabrielle Caverl-McNeal, Director of Workforce Development at New Moms
- Dina Bakst, Co-founder and co-president of A Better Balance
- Khushbu Shah, Interim Editor in Chief, Fuller Project
- Rebecca Pontikes, Principal of Pontikes Law LLC
- Dr. Ashley Deutsch, Director of Quality and Patient Safety for the Department of Emergency Medicine at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, MA
To hear more of this episode including stories and questions from callers, click here. You can also find this episode wherever you listen to your podcasts. The video and transcript of the conversation are down below.